■v     ■      '      ■ 


THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 


ENDOWED  BY  THE 
DIALECTIC  AND  PHILANTHROPIC 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00016339909 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU 

GAU  DISS  ART  THE   GREA1 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hil 


http://archive.org/details/csarbirotteaubatOObalz 


With  his  back  against  a  tree  in  the  boulevard,  he 
turned  the  pages  over 


H.    DE    BALZAC 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU       pQ^3 
BEATRIX  || 


AND   OTHER   STORIES 


/ffff 


TRANSLATED  BY 


ELLEN  MARRIAGE  and  JAMES  WARING 


WITH   PREFACES  BY 


GEORGE  SAINTSBURY 

PHILADELPHIA 

The  Gebbie  Publishing  Co.,  Ltd. 
1899 


St         L 


>y 


CONTENTS 

VOLUME    I. 

PAGE 

PREFACE ix 

CESAR   BIROTTEAU 

HIS    APOGEE I 

CESAR    STRUGGLES    WITH    MISFORTUNES      .            .            .            .            .  iSo 

GAVDISSART   THE    GREAT 343 

VOLUME   11. 

PREFACE ix 

BEATRIX 

I.    DRAMATIS    PERSONS 2 

II.    THE    DRAMA I3I 

III.    RETROSPECTIVE    ADULTERY            ......  24I 

THE   PURSE      .                357 


819130 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


VOLUME   I. 

WITH    HIS   BACK  AGAINST    A  TREE  IN  THE  BOULEVARD,  HE   TURNED 

THE  pages  over    (p.  34) Frontispiece 

PAGE 

"GOOD-DAY,    MY    DEAR    LADY,"    SAID   BIROTTEAU   FLIPPANTLY  .         98 

"TO   WHAT    DO    I    OWE    THE    HONOR    OF   YOUR   VISIT,    SIR?"  .      2l6 

"  I    MUST    HAVE   MY    MONEY,    I    WANT    MY    MONEY !  "  .  .      286 

Drawn  by  IV.  Boucher. 

GAUDISSART   THE   GREAT 343 

Drawn  by  y.  Ayton  Symington. 


VOLUME   II. 

AT   THE   UNEXPECTED   SIGHT   CALYSTE   AND     FELICITE    SAT    SILENT 

FOR    A    MINUTE IOI 

"  SPARE   THE    HORSES,  MY    BOY  THEY  HAVE  TWELVE  LEAGUES 

BEFORE   THEM" I4I 

"OPEN   YOUR    EYES,    FORGIVE   ME !  "    SAID     CALYSTE,    "  OR    WE   DIE 

TOGETHER " 204 

"  LEAVE   ME,    DAUGHTER,"    SHE   SAID,    GOING   TO    HER    PRIE-DIEU    .       296 
Drawn  by  W.  Boucher. 


PREFACE. 

Few  books  of  Balzac's  have  been  the  subject  of  more  diverse 
judgment  than  "  Cesar  Birotteau."  From  the  opinion  of  the 
unnamed  solicitor,  who  told  Madame  Serville  that  it  was  an 
invaluable  work  to  consult  on  bankruptcy,  to  that  of  M.  Paul 
Lacroix  (beloved  of  many  as  the  Bibliophile  Jacob),  that  it 
might  be  forgiven  for  the  sake  of  "  Le  Pere  Goriot  "  and  the 
"  Peau  de  Chagrin,"  there  is  not  perhaps  quite  so  great  a 
distance  as  may  appear ;  but  other  expressions,  opposed  not 
merely  in  form,  but  in  fact,  might  probably  be  collected. 

As  for  the  unfavorable  division  of  these  opinions  there  is  no 
difficulty  in  discovering  their  causes  ;  and  there  should  be 
little,  save  in  the  case  of  blind  partisans,  in  acknowledging 
their  partial  validity.  Although  the  book  opens  with  one  of 
Balzac's  most  brilliant  pieces  of  actual  human  observation — 
the  description  of  the  vague  and  half-delirious  terror  of  waking 
from  a  bad  dream — and  though  the  subsequent  conversation 
between  Cesar  and  Constance  has  the  merit  of  no  vulgar  cur- 
tain-lecture, it  soon  goes  off  into  one  of  those  endless  retro- 
spective narrations  which  are  among  the  greatest  blots  on  the 
Comedie,  which  utterly  stop  the  action,  and  which,  in  the 
case  of  very  many  readers  who  are  not  gifted  with  the  faculty 
of  what  may  be  called  literary  mountaineering,  are  very 
likely  to  cause  the  putting  down  of  the  book.  To  this  initial 
difficulty  has  to  be  added  the  choking  of  the  latter  part  with 
those  bankruptcy  details  which  did  so  charm  the  professional 
mind  of  Laure  Balzac's  learned  friend,  and  which,  for  unpro- 
fessional minds,  have  something  which  is  very  much  the  re- 
verse of  charm.  The  reader  of  only  moderate  athletic  powers, 
who  has  with  difficulty  struggled  through  and  up  the  sloughs 
and  slopes  of  the  previous  history  of  the  Birotteau  business,  is 
hardly  to  be  blamed  if  he  gives  up  the  attempt  in  despair 

(ix) 


x  PREFACE. 

after  some  attempt  on  the  slippery  "  screes"  of  commercial 
law  which  Balzac  has  delighted  to  strew  over  the  higher 
ground. 

Complaints  of  these  drawbacks,  I  repeat,  would  be,  and 
are,  just.  Nevertheless,  though  the  list  of  the  faults  of  the 
book  is  not  even  yet  exhausted,  it  will  be  a  very  great  pity  if 
any  one  is  baffled  by  them  and  fails  to  go  through  to  the  end. 
For  "Cesar  Birotteau  "  is  a  book  than  which  none  of  Bal- 
zac's is  more  thoroughly  vecu,  as  his  countrymen  say,  more 
thoroughly  inspired  with  the  personal  sympathies  and  ex- 
periences of  the  author ;  and  this  with  Balzac  was  always  a 
guarantee  of  success.  He  too  knew  bankruptcy  well,  and  not 
merely  by  his  studies  in  the  lawyer's  office ;  for  though  I 
believe  he  never  actually  "  passed  the  court  "  (even  his  print- 
ing and  publishing  operations,  disastrous  as  they  were,  termi- 
nated in  arrangements),  he  was  face  to  face  with  it  all  his 
life.  He,  too,  knew  the  attraction,  the  fatal  attraction  of  une 
bonne  affaire,  such  as  he  speaks  of  in  one  of  his  letters — une 
bonne  affaire  qui  ne  demande  que  cent  mille  francs.  He  was 
perfectly  capable  of  buying  up  all  the  nuts  in  Paris  in  order 
to  make  hair-oil  of  them  ;  I  should  not  be  at  all  surprised 
if  he  had  actually  had  in  view  this  very  speculation.  And 
he  thought  he  knew  the  ways  of  bankers  and  folk  of  that  kind; 
though  whether  he  did  or  not,  the  sons  of  Zeruiah  were 
usually  as  much  too  hard  for  him  as  they  were  for  Birotteau. 
Hence  there  is  even  in  the  dryest  details,  even  in  the  most 
long-winded  reportage  of  the  book,  the  throb  of  personal  in- 
terest, the  pulse  and  pant  of  life. 

The  action  and  characters  also  are  interesting,  if  not,  on 
the  whole,  quite  artistically  probable.  It  will  be  observed 
that  the  hero  does  a  little  underlie  the  constant  objection  of 
the  Devil's  Advocate  to  Balzac,  that  almost  every  one  of  his 
good  characters  is  more  or  less  of  a  fool.  Even  a  keen  man 
of  business  may,  of  course,  be  easily  outwitted  in  a  game  of 
pure    speculation — a   proposition  which  we  need  not  go  to 


PREFACE.  xi 

France,  or  examine  the  long  list  of  "crashes"  from  the  ficti- 
tious terrains  de  la  Madeleine  to  the  real  Panama,  in  order  to 
establish.  And  a  very  keen  man  of  business  may  be  imprud- 
ently expensive  in  a  combined  fit  of  personal  vanity  and  affec- 
tion for  his  family.  But  it  is  a  little  of  a  stretch  on  the 
credulity  of  the  reader  to  represent  a  plodding  tradesman  like 
Birotteau,  who,  as  we  are  expressly  told,  had  an  old-fashioned 
horror  of  "  paper,"  as  not  merely  incurring  large  speculative 
obligations,  but  as  stripping  himself  of  every  rap  of  ready 
money  while  exposing  himself  to  an  unusual  demand  for  it. 
The  picture  of  his  going  a-borrowing  and  a-sorrowing  is  drawn 
with  great  power  and  with  much  vivacity ;  but  here,  too,  his 
simplicity  is  a  thought  exaggerated.  And  Constance's  affection 
for  and  fidelity  to  an  unattractive  man,  whom  she  saw  to  be 
little  better  than  a  fool,  may  be  thought  improbable  in  an 
ideal  beauty  with  a  clear  head,  while  some  may  even  say  that 
ideal  beauties  are  almost  always  extremely  stupid.  Yet,  again, 
in  Cesarine,  Momus  may  point  to  that  superficiality  and  vague- 
ness which  usually,  if  not  always,  mar  Balzac's  treatment  of 
an  "  honest  "  girl. 

Yet  these  things  will  not,  any  more  than  those  formerly 
mentioned,  make  any  fair  or  genial  judge  give  up  the  book  to 
a  lower  class  than  that  of  Balzac's  best,  if  not  of  his  very 
best.  Whatever  faults  Birotteau  may  have,  his  goodness  and 
his  probity  and,  let  us  add  (though  it  be  a  little  illegitimate), 
his  tragic  end,  make  him  one  of  the  author's  most  sympathetic 
personages,  as  are  also  his  wife  and  daughter.  If  Popinot  is 
rather  the  virtuous  apprentice  of  the  stage,  and  Du  Tillet  the 
wicked  ditto,  who  is  not  punished,  the  former  at  least  is  attrac- 
tive ;  and  Pillerault,  the  good  uncle,  certainly  cannot  be  ac- 
cused of  foolishness.  All  the  minor  figures  come  in  well  for 
the  action  whenever  Balzac  will  let  them  act,  and  not  be  talk- 
ing himself;  and  even  the  bankruptcy  affair  acquires  a  sort  of 
interest  from  the  rapidity  and  bustle  of  its  conduct.  As  for 
the  ball — that  famous  and  elaborate  instance  of  the  penalties 


xii  PREFACE. 

and  disappointments  of  elaborately  engineered  and  anticipated 
pleasure — it  is  excellent.  Nor  should  we  close  without  special 
commendation  for  Claparon,  a  less  labored  personage  than 
some  of  the  author's,  but  a  very  happy  sketch  of  rascality 
which  is  not  exactly  scoundrelism,  because,  though  entirely 
unscrupulous,  it  is  not  in  the  least  malign. 

The  book  was  originally  published  after  a  fashion  not  un- 
common in  France,  but,  I  think,  hardly,  if  at  all,  known  in 
England,  with  no  publisher's  name,  and  not  for  sale,  but  as 
a  bonus  jointly  given  by  the  "  Figaro  "  and  the  "  Estafette  " 
to  their  subscribers  for  1838.  It  bore  that  date,  but  was  act- 
ually issued  in  November,  1837.  In  this  form  it  had  two 
volumes,  three  parts  (the  present  two,  and  a  third,  "  Le  Tri- 
omphe  de  Cesar"),  and  sixteen  chapters  and  headings.  Re- 
published by  Charpentier  in  1839,  li  l°st  tne  chapter,  but 
kept  the  part-headings,  the  last  being  omitted  when  it  be- 
came a  "  Scene  de  la  Vie  Parisienne  "  in  the  general  arrange- 
ment of  the  Comedie  (1844). 

"  Gaudissart  the  Great  "  is,  of  course,  slight,  not  merely  in 
bulk,  but  in  conception.  Balzac's  Tourangeau  patriotism  may 
have  amused  itself  by  the  idea  of  the  villagers  "  rolling  "  the 
great  Gaudissart ;  but  the  ending  of  the  tale  can  hardly  be 
thought  to  be  quite  so  good  as  the  beginning.  Still,  that  be- 
ginning is  altogether  excellent.  The  sketch  of  the  cotmnis- 
voyageur  generally  smacks  of  that  physiologic  style  of  which 
Balzac  was  so  fond  ;  but  it  is  good,  and  Gaudissart  himself,  as 
well  as  the  whole  scene  with  his  epouse  libre,  is  delightful. 
The  Illustrious  One  was  evidently  a  favorite  character  with 
his  creator.  He  nowhere  plays  a  very  great  part ;  but  it  is 
everywhere  a  rather  favorable  and,  except  in  this  little  mishap 
with  Margaritis  (which,  it  must  be  observed,  does  not  turn 
entirely  to  his  discomfiture),  a  rather  successful  part.  We 
have  him  in  "Cesar  Birotteau,"  superintending  the  early 
efforts  of  Popinot  to  launch  the  Huile  Cephalique.  He  was 
present  at  the  great  ball.     He  served  as  intermediary  to  M. 


PREFACE. 


xm 


de  Bauvan  in  the  merciful  scheme  of  buying  at  fancy  prices 
the  handiwork  of  the  Count's  faithless  spouse,  and  so  providing 
her  with  a  livelihood  ;  and  later,  as  a  theatrical  manager,  a 
little  spoilt  by  his  profession,  we  find  him  in  "  Le  Cousin 
Pons."  But  he  is  always  what  the  French  call  "a  good 
devil,"  and  here  he  is  a  very  good  devil,  indeed. 

G.  S. 

Note. — I  hope  it  is  not  improper  to  bespeak  unusual  indulgence  for  the 
translator  in  regard  to  the  technicalities  of  this  book.  She  has,  I  know, 
taken  the  greatest  pains  with  them.  But  to  secure  absolute  success  in 
such  a  matter  we  must  have  an  expert  in  French  bankruptcy  law  who  is 
also  an  expert  in  English  bankruptcy  law,  and  perfect  in  both  literatures 
as  well.     One  might  go  far  before  finding  such  a  person. 


THE   RISE   AND    FALL    OF 
CESAR    BIROTTEAU, 

Retail  Perfumer, 

Deputy-Mayor  of  the  Second  Arrondissement,  Paris, 

Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  etc. 

To  Monsieur  Alphonse  de  Lamartine,  from  his  admirer, 

De  Balzac. 

I. 

cesar's  apogee. 

There  is  but  one  brief  interval  of  silence  during  a  winter 
night  in  the  Rue  Saint-Honore  ;  for  to  the  sounds  of  carriages 
rolling  home  from  balls  and  theatres  succeeds  the  rumbling 
of  market-gardeners'  carts  on  their  way  to  the  Great  Market. 
During  this  pause  in  the  great  symphony  of  uproar  sent  up  by 
the  streets  of  Paris,  this  cessation  of  traffic  toward  one  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  the  wife  of  M.  Cesar  Birotteau,  of  the  retail 
perfumery  establishment  near  the  Place  Vendome,  dreamed  a 
frightful  dream,  and  awoke  with  a  start. 

She  had  met  her  double.  She  had  appeared  to  herself, 
clad  in  rags,  laying  a  meagre,  shriveled  hand  on  her  own 
store-door  handle.  She  had  been  at  once  in  her  chair  at  the 
cash  desk  and  on  the  threshold ;  she  had  heard  herself  beg- 
ging ;  she  had  heard  two  selves  speaking  in  fact,  the  one  from 
the  desk,  the  other  from  the  doorstep.  She  turned  and 
stretched  out  her  hand  for  her  husband,  and  found  his  place 
cold.  At  that  her  terror  grew  to  such  a  pitch  that  she  could  not 
move  her  head,  her  neck  seemed  stiffened  to  stone,  the  walls 

(1) 


2  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

of  her  throat  were  glued  together,  her  voice  failed  her ;  she 
sat  up  rigid  and  motionless,  staring  before  her  with  wide  eyes. 
Her  hair  rose  with  a  painful  sensation,  strange  sounds  rang  in 
her  ears,  something  clutched  at  her  heart  though  it  beat  hard, 
she  was  covered  with  perspiration,  and  yet  shuddering  with 
cold  in  the  alcove  behind  the  two  open  folding-doors. 

Fear,  with  its  partially  morbific  effects,  is  an  emotion  which 
puts  so  violent  a  strain  upon  the  human  mechanism  that  the 
mental  faculties  are  either  suddenly  stimulated  by  it  to  the 
highest  degree  of  activity  or  reduced  to  the  last  extremity 
of  disorganization.  Physiology  has  long  been  puzzled  to 
account  for  a  phenomenon  which  upsets  its  theories  and  stul- 
tifies its  hypotheses,  although  it  is  simply  and  solely  a  shock 
brought  about  spontaneously,  but,  like  all  electrical  phenom- 
ena, erratic  and  unaccountable  in  its  manifestations.  This 
explanation  will  become  a  commonplace  when  men  of  science 
recognize  the  great  part  played  by  electricity  in  human  think- 
ing power. 

Mme.  Birotteau  was  just  then  enduring  the  pangs  which 
bring  about  a  certain  mental  lucidity  consequent  on  those 
terrible  discharges  when  the  will  is  contracted  or  expanded 
by  a  mysterious  mechanism.  So  that,  during  a  lapse  of  time, 
exceedingly  short  if  measured  by  the  tickings  of  a  clock,  but 
incommensurable  by  reason  of  the  infinite  rapid  impressions 
which  it  brought,  the  poor  woman  had  the  prodigious  power 
of  uttering  more  thoughts  and  of  calling  up  more  memories 
than  would  have  arisen  in  her  mind  in  its  normal  state  in  the 
course  of  a  whole  day.  Her  soliloquy  during  this  vivid  and 
painful  experience  may  be  resumed  in  a  few  words  she  uttered, 
incongruous  and  nonsensical  as  they  were — 

"There  is  no  reason  whatever  why  Birotteau  should  be  out 
of  bed.  He  ate  so  much  veal ;  perhaps  it  disagreed  with 
him.  But  if  he  had  been  taken  ill,  he  would  have  waked  me 
up.  These  nineteen  years  that  we  have  slept  here  together 
under  this  roof,  he  has  never  got  up  in  the  middle  of  the 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  3 

night  without  telling  me,  poor  dear  !  He  has  never  slept  out 
except  when  lie  was  on  guard.  Did  he  go  to  bed  when  I  did? 
Why,  yes.     Dear  me  !  how  stupid  I  am  !  " 

She  glanced  over  the  bed.  There  lay  her  husband's  night- 
cap, moulded  to  the  almost  conical  shape  of  his  head. 

"  Can  he  be  dead  ?  Can  he  have  made  away  with  himself? 
Why  should  he?"  she  thought.  "Since  they  made  him 
deputy-mayor  two  years  ago,  I  haven't  known  what  to  make  of 
him.  To  get  mixed  up  with  public  affairs,  on  the  word  of  an 
woman,  isn't  it  enough  to  make  you  feel  sorry  for  a  man  ? 
The  business  is  doing  well.  He  has  just  given  me  a  shawl. 
Perhaps  it  is  doing  badly  !  Pshaw  !  I  should  know  of  it  if  it 
were.  But  is  there  any  knowing  what  is  in  the  bottom  of  a 
man's  mind?  Or  a  woman's  either?  There  is  no  harm  in 
that.  Haven't  sales  amounted  to  five  thousand  francs  this  very 
day  !  And  then  a  deputy-mayor  is  not  likely  to  kill  himself; 
he  knows  the  law  too  well  for  that.     But  where  can  he  be?  " 

She  had  no  power  to  turn  her  head ;  she  could  not  stretch 
out  a  hand  to  the  bell-rope,  which  would  have  set  in  motion 
a  general  servant,  three  clerks,  and  the  errand  boy.  The 
nightmare  that  lasted  on  into  her  waking  moments  was  so 
strong  upon  her  that  she  forgot  her  daughter,  peacefully  sleep- 
ing in  the  next  room,  beyond  the  door  which  opened  at  the 
foot  of  the  bed. 

"Birotteau?  "  She  received  no  answer.  She  fancied  that 
she  had  called  aloud,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  had  only 
spoken  in  her  thoughts. 

"  Suppose  he  should  have  a  mistress?  But  he  has  not  wit 
enough  for  that,"  she  thought,  "and  then  he  is  too  fond  of 
me.  Didn't  he  tell  Madame  Roguin  that  he  had  never  been 
unfaithful  to  me,  even  in  thought?  Why,  the  man  is  honesty 
itself!  If  any  one  deserves  to  go  to  heaven,  he  does.  What 
he  finds  to  say  to  his  confessor,  I  don't  know.  He  tells  him 
make-believes.  For  a  Royalist  as  he  is  (without  any  reason  to 
give  for  it,  by-the-by),  he  does  not  make  much  of  a  puff  of 


4  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

his  religion.  Poor  dear,  he  slips  out  to  mass  at  eight  o'clock 
as  if  he  were  running  off  to  amuse  himself  on  the  sly.  It  is 
the  fear  of  God  that  he  has  before  his  eyes ;  he  does  not 
trouble  himself  much  about  hell.  How  should  he  have  a 
mistress?  He  keeps  so  close  to  my  apron-strings  that  I  get 
tired  of  it.  He  loves  me  like  the  apple  of  his  eye ;  he  would 
put  out  his  eyes  for  me.  All  these  nineteen  years  he  has 
never  spoken  a  harsh  word  to  myself.     I  come  before  his 

daughter  with  him.     Why,  Cesarine  is  there (Cesarine  ! 

Cesarine  !)  Birotteau  never  has  a  thought  that  he  does  not 
tell  me.  It  was  a  true  word  he  said  when  he  came  to  the 
sign  of  the  Little  Sailor  and  told  me  that  it  would  take  time 

to  know  him.     And  he's  gone  ! that  is  the  extraordinary 

thing!" 

She  turned  her  head  with  an  effort  and  peered  into  the 
darkness.  Night  filled  the  room  with  picturesque  effects,  the 
despair  of  language,  the  exclusive  province  of  the  painter  of 
genre.  What  words  could  reproduce  the  whimsical  shapes 
that  the  curtains  took  as  the  draft  swelled  them,  or  the  startling 
zigzag  shadows  that  they  cast  ?  The  dim  night-light  flickered 
over  the  red  cotton  folds ;  the  brass  rosette  of  the  curtain-rest 
reflected  the  crimson  gleams  from  a  central  boss,  blood-shot 
like  a  robber's  eye;  a  ghostly  gown  was  kneeling  there;  the 
room  was  filled,  in  fact,  with  all  the  strange,  unfamiliar  appear- 
ances which  appal  the  imagination  at  a  time  when  it  can  only 
see  horrors  and  exaggerate  them. 

Mme.  Birotteau  fancied  that  she  saw  a  bright  light  in  the 
next  room,  and  a  thought  of  fire  flashed  across  her ;  but  she 
caught  sight  of  a  red  bandanna  handkerchief,  which  looked 
to  her  like  a  pool  of  blood,  and  in  another  moment  she  dis- 
covered traces  of  a  struggle  in  the  arrangement  of  the  furni- 
ture, and  could  think  of  nothing  but  burglars.  She  remem- 
bered that  there  was  a  sum  of  money  in  the  safe,  and  a  gener- 
ous fear  extinguished  the  cold  ague  of  nightmare.  Thoroughly 
alarmed,  she  sprang  out  on  to  the  floor  in  her  night-dress,  to 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  5 

go  to  the  assistance  of  the  husband  whom  she  fancied  as  en- 
gaged in  a  hand-to-hand  conflict  with  assassins. 

"  Birotteau  !  Birotteau  !  "  she  cried  in  a  voice  of  anguish. 

The  retail  perfumer  was  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  ad- 
jacent room,  apparently  engaged  in  measuring  the  air  with  a 
yard -stick.  His  dressing-gown  (of  green  cotton  with  choco- 
late-colored spots)  covered  him  so  ill  that  his  bare  legs  were 
red  with  the  cold,  but  he  did  not  seem  to  notice  this. 

When  Cesar  turned  round  with  a  "Well,  what  is  it,  Con- 
stance?" he  looked  as  a  man  absorbed  by  his  schemes  is  apt 
to  look — so  ludicrously  foolish,  that  Mme.  Birotteau  began  to 
laugh. 

"  Dear  me,  Cesar,  how  queer  you  look  !  "  said  she.  "  What 
made  you  leave  me  alone  without  saying  anything?  I  nearly 
died  of  fright.  I  did  not  know  what  to  think.  What  are  you 
after,  open  to  every  wind  that  blows  ?  You  will  catch  your 
death  of  cold.     Birotteau  !   do  you  hear?  " 

"Yes,  wife;  here  I  am,"  and  the  perfumer  returned  to  the 
bedroom. 

"There,  come  along  and  warm  yourself,  and  tell  me  what 
crotchet  you  have  in  your  head,"  returned  Mme.  Birotteau, 
raking  among  the  ashes,  which  she  hastily  tried  to  rekindle. 
"I  am  frozen.  How  stupid  it  was  of  me  to  get  up  in  my 
night-dress  !  But  I  really  thought  you  were  being  mur- 
dered." 

The  merchant  set  down  the  bedroom  candlestick  on  the 
mantel,  huddled  himself  in  his  dressing-gown,  and  looked 
about  the  room  in  an  absent  fashion  for  his  wife's  flannel 
petticoat. 

"Here,  pussie,  just  put  this  on,"  said  he.      "Twenty-two 

by  eighteen "  he  added,  continuing  his  soliloquy.     "We 

could  have  a  magnificent  drawing-room." 

"  Look  here  !  Birotteau,  you  seem  to  be  in  a  fair  way  to 
lose  your  wits.     Are  you  dreaming?" 

"  No  j  I  am  thinking,  wife." 


6  C&SAR  BTROTTEAU. 

"  Then  you  might  wait ;  your  follies  will  keep  till  daylight, 
at  any  rate,"  cried  she,  and,  fastening  her  petticoat  under  her 
sleeping-jacket,  she  went  to  open  the  door  of  their  daughter's 
room. 

"  Cesarine  is  fast  asleep.  She  will  not  hear  a  word.  Come, 
Birotteau,  tell  me  about  it.     What  is  it  ?  " 

"  We  can  give  the  ball." 

"  Give  a  ball !  We  give  a  ball !  My  dear !  on  the  word 
of  an  honest  woman,  you  are  dreaming ! 

"Dreaming?  not  a  bit  of  it,  darling." 

"  Listen  ;  you  should  always  do  your  duty  according  to  your 
station  in  life.  Now  the  Government  has  brought  me  into 
prominence,  I  belong  to  the  Government,  and  it  is  incumbent 
upon  us  to  study  its  spirit  and  to  forward  its  aims  by  develop- 
ing them.  The  Due  de  Richelieu  has  just  put  an  end  to  the 
occupation  of  the  allied  troops.  According  to  Monsieur  de 
la  Billardiere,  official  functionaries  who  represent  the  city  of 
Paris  ought  to  regard  it  as  a  duty — each  in  his  own  sphere  of 
influence — to  celebrate  the  liberation  of  French  soil.  Let  us 
establish  beyond  proof  a  genuine  patriotism  which  shall  put 
those  accursed  schemers  that  call  themselves  Liberals  to  the 
blush,  eh  ?  Do  you  think  that  I  do  not  love  my  country  ?  I 
mean  to  show  the  Liberals  and  my  enemies  that  to  love  the 
King  is  to  love  France." 

"  Then  do  you  think  that  you  have  any  enemies,  my  poor 
Birotteau?" 

"Why,  yes,  we  have  enemies,  wife.  And  half  our  friends 
in  the  quarter  are  among  them.  They  all  say,  '  Birotteau  has 
such  luck  ;  Birotteau  was  once  a  nobody,  and  look  at  him 
now  !  He  is  deputy-mayor  ;  everything  has  prospered  with 
him.'  Very  well;  there  is  a  nice  disappointment  still  in 
store  for  them.  You  shall  be  the  first  to  hear  that  I  am  a 
chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honor ;  the  King  signed  the  patent 
yesterday." 

"  Oh  !  well  then,  dear,  we  must  give  the  ball,"  cried  Mme. 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  7 

Birotteau,  greatly  excited.  "  But  what  can  you  have  done  so 
great  as  to  have  the  cross  ?  " 

Birotteau  was  embarrassed. 

"  When  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere  told  me  about  it  yester- 
day," said  he,  "  I  asked  myself,  just  as  you  did,  what  claim  I 
had  to  it.  But,  after  thinking  it  over,  I  saw  that  I  deserved 
it,  and  ended  by  approving  the  action  of  the  Government. 
To  begin  with,  I  am  a  Royalist,  and  I  was  wounded  at  Saint- 
Roch  in  Vendemiaire  ;  it  is  something,  isn't  it,  to  have  borne 
arms  for  the  good  cause  in  those  times  ?  Then  some  of  the 
merchants  think  that  the  way  I  discharged  my  duties  as  arbi- 
trator at  the  Consular  Tribunal  had  given  general  satisfaction  ; 
and,  lastly,  I  am  a  deputy-mayor,  and  the  King  is  distributing 
four  crosses  among  the  municipal  authorities  in  the  city  of 
Paris.  After  they  had  gone  into  the  claims  of  the  deputy- 
mayors  for  a  decoration,  the  prefect  put  me  down  at  the  top 
of  the  list.  The  King,  too,  is  sure  to  know  my  name  ;  thanks 
to  old  Ragon,  I  supply  him  with  the  only  hair  powder  he  will 
use  ;  no  one  else  has  the  recipe  for  the  powder  the  late  Queen 
used  to  wear,  poor  dear  august  victim  !  The  mayor  backed 
me  up  with  all  his  might.  What  was  I  to  do  ?  If  the  King 
gives  me  the  cross  when  I  don't  ask  him  for  it,  it  looks  to 
me  as  if  I  could  not  decline  it  without  failing  in  respect. 
Was  it  my  doing  that  I  was  made  a  deputy-mayor  ?  So  as  we 
have  the  wind  in  our  sails,  wife,  as  your  uncle  Pillerault  says 
when  he  is  in  a  joking  humor,  I  have  made  up  my  mind  that 
we  must  live  up  to  our  high  position.  If  I  am  to  be  some- 
body, I  will  have  a  try  at  being  whatever  Providence  meant 
me  to  be  ;  a  sub-prefect,  if  such  is  my  destiny.  And  you 
make  a  great  mistake,  wife,  when  you  imagine  that  a  citizen 
has  discharged  all  the  duty  he  owes  his  country  when  he  has 
supplied  his  customers  with  scent  across  the  counter  for  a 
score  of  years.  If  the  State  demands  the  cooperation  of  our 
intelligence,  we  are  as  much  bound  to  give  it  as  to  pay  suc- 
cession duty  or  the  door  and  window  tax,  et  cetera.     Do  you 


8  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

want  to  sit  at  your  desk  all  your. life  ?  You  have  been  there 
a  pretty  long  time  (God  be  thanked).  The  ball  will  be  a 
private  fete  of  our  own.  No  more  of  the  store  ;  for  you,  that 
is.  I  shall  burn  the  signboard  The  Queen  of  Roses,  and 
the  words,  Cesar  Birotteau  (late  Ragon),  Retail  Per- 
fumer, shall  be  painted  out  on  the  store-front.  I  shall  simply 
put  up  Perfumery  in  big  gold  letters  instead.  There  will  be 
room  on  the  mezzanine  floor  for  a  cash  desk  and  the  safe, 
and  a  nice  little  room  for  you.  I  shall  make  the  back-store 
and  the  present  dining-room  and  kitchen  into  a  warehouse. 
Then  I  mean  to  take  the  second  floor  next  door,  and  make  a 
way  into  it  through  the  wall.  The  staircase  must  be  altered 
so  that  we  can  walk  on  the  level  out  of  one  house  and  into 
the  other.  We  shall  have  a  fine  set  of  rooms  then,  furnished 
up  to  the  nines. 

"Yes.  I  will  have  your  room  done  up  and  contrive  a 
boudoir  for  you,  and  Cesarine  shall  have  a  pretty  room.  You 
must  engage  a  young  lady  for  the  store,  and  she  and  the  assist- 
ant and  your  waiting-maid  (yes,  madame,  you  shall  have  a 
waiting-maid)  shall  have  rooms  on  the  third  floor.  The 
kitchen  must  be  on  the  fourth  floor.  The  cook  and  the  errand- 
boy  shall  be  lodged  up  there,  and  we  will  keep  the  stock  of 
bottles,  and  flasks,  and  china  on  the  fifth.  The  workrooms 
can  be  in  the  attics,  so  when  people  come  in  they  will  not  see 
bottles  being  filled  and  stoppered  and  labeled,  nor  sachets 
being  made.  That  sort  of  thing  is  all  very  well  for  the  Rue 
Saint-Denis,  but  it  won't  do  in  the  Rue  Saint-Honore  !  Bad 
style.  Our  store  ought  to  be  as  snug  as  a  drawing-room. 
Just  tell  me  this :  are  we  the  only  perfumers  who  have  come 
in  for  honors?  Aren't  there  vinegar-makers  and  mustard 
manufacturers  who  have  a  command  in  the  National  Guard, 
and  are  well  looked  on  at  the  Tuileries  ?  Let  us  do  as  they 
do,  and  extend  the  business,  at  the  same  time  making  our 
way  in  society." 

(i  One  moment,  Birotteau.    Do  you  know  what  I  think  while 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  9 

I  hear  you  talk?  Well,  to  me,  it  is  just  as  if  a  man  was  start- 
ing out  on  a  wild-goose  chase.  Don't  you  remember  what  I 
told  you  when  there  was  talk  of  your  being  made  mayor  ?  A 
quiet  life  before  all  things,  I  said  ;  you  are  about  as  fit  for 
public  life  as  my  arm  for  a  windmill  sail.  Grand  doings  will 
be  the  ruin  of  you. 

"You  did  not  listen  to  me;  and  here  the  ruin  has  come 
upon  us.  If  you  are  going  to  take  part  in  politics,  you  must 
have  money  ;  and  have  we  money  ?  What  !  you  mean  to 
burn  the  signboard  that  cost  six  hundred  francs,  and  give  up 
the  Queen  of  Roses  and  your  real  glory?  Leave  ambition 
to  other  people.  If  you  put  your  hand  in  the  fire,  you  get 
singed,  don't  you?  Politics  are  very  hot  nowadays.  We 
have  a  hundred  thousand  francs  good  money  invested  outside 
the  business,  the  stock,  and  the  factory,  have  we  ?  If  you 
have  a  mind  to  increase  it,  do  now  as  you  did  in  1793.  The 
funds  are  at  seventy-two,  buy  rentes ;  you  would  have  ten 
thousand  livres  a  year  coming  in  without  drawing  anything 
out  of  the  business.  Then  take  advantage  of  the  transfer  to 
marry  our  Cesarine,  sell  the  business,  and  let  us  go  and  live 
in  your  part  of  the  world.  Why,  any  time  for  these  fifteen 
years  you  have  talked  of  buying  the  Treasury  Farm,  that  nice 
little  place  near  Chinon,  with  streams,  and  meadows,  and 
woods  and  vineyards,  and  crofts.  It  would  bring  you  in  a 
thousand  crowns  a  year,  and  we  both  of  us  like  the  house. 
It  is  still  to  be  had  for  sixty  thousand  crowns,  and  my  gentle- 
man must  meddle  and  make  in  politics,  must  he? 

"  Just  remember  what  we  are — we  are  perfumers.  Sixteen 
years  ago,  before  you  thought  of  the  Superfine  Pate  des  Sul- 
tanes  and  the  Carminative  Toilet  Lotion,  if  any  one  had  come 
and  said  to  you,  '  You  will  have  money  enough  to  buy  the 
Treasury  Farm,'  wouldn't  you  have  been  wild  with  joy? 
Very  well ;  and  now,  when  you  can  buy  the  property  which 
you  wanted  so  much  that  you  talked  of  nothing  else  every 
time  that  you  opened  your  mouth,  you  begin  to  talk  of  squan-- 


10  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

dering  the  money  that  we  have  earned  by  the  sweat  of  our 
brows,  ours  I  may  say,  for  all  along  I  have  sat  there  at  the 
desk  like  a  dog  in  a  kennel.  Now,  instead  of  turning  five 
sous  into  six  centimes,  and  six  centimes  into  nothing  at  all, 
wouldn't  it  be  better  to  have  a  daughter  married  to  a  notary 
in  Paris,  and  a  house  that  you  can  stay  at,  and  to  spend  eight 
months  in  the  year  at  Chinon  ? 

"Wait  until  the  funds  rise.  You  can  give  your  daughter 
eight  thousand  livres  a  year  ;  we  will  keep  two  thousand  for 
ourselves,  and  the  sale  of  the  business  will  pay  for  the  Treasury 
Farm.  We  will  take  the  furniture  down  into  the  country, 
dear,  it  is  quite  worth  while,  and  there  we  can  live  like 
princes,  while  here  one  must  have  at  least  a  million  to  cut  a 
figure." 

"That  is  just  what  I  expected,"  said  Cesar  Birotteau. 
"  Oh  !  you  think  I  am  very  foolish,  no  doubt,  but  I  am  not 
so  foolish  but  that  I  have  looked  at  the  thing  all  around. 
Attend  to  what  I  am  going  to  say.  Alexandre  Crottat  is  a 
son-in-law  that  would  suit  us  to  a  T,  and  he  will  have  Roguin's 
practice;  but  do  you  imagine  that  he  would  be  satisfied  with 
a  hundred  thousand  francs?  (always  supposing  that  we  pay 
down  all  our  ready  money  when  we  marry  our  daughter;  and 
I  am  of  that  way  of  thinking,  for  I  would  have  nothing  but 
dry  bread  for  the  rest  of  my  days  to  see  her  as  happy  as  a 
queen  and  the  wife  of  a  Paris  notary,  as  you  say).  Very  well, 
but  a  hundred  thousand  francs  down,  or  even  eight  thousand 
francs  of  rentes,  would  go  no  way  toward  buying  Roguin's 
practice. 

"Young  Xandrot  (as  we  call  him)  thinks,  like  everybody 
else,  that  we  are  a  great  deal  richer  than  we  are.  If  that 
father  of  his,  a  rich  farmer  who  sticks  to  his  property  like  a 
leech,  does  not  sell  something  like  a  hundred  thousand  francs 
worth  of  land,  Xandrot  will  not  be  a  notary,  for  Roguin's 
practice  is  worth  four  or  five  hundred  thousand  francs.  If 
Crottat  does  not  pay  half  the  money  down,  how  will  he  man- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  11 

age  the  business?  Cesarine  ought  to  have  a  portion  of  two 
hundred  thousand  francs,  and  we  should  retire  like  decent 
citizens  of  Paris  on  fifteen  thousand  livres  a  year  in  the  funds; 
that  is  what  I  should  like.  If  I  could  make  you  see  all  this  as 
clear  as  daylight,  you  would  have  nothing  left  to  say  for  your- 
self, eh  ?  " 

"Oh  !  if  you  have  the  wealth  of  the  Indies "  his  wife 

returned. 

"So  I  have,  darling.  Yes,"  he  put  his  arm  round  his 
wife's  waist,  and  tapped  her  gently  with  his  fingers,  impelled 
by  the  joy  that  shone  from  every  feature  of  his  face.  "  I  did 
not  want  to  say  a  word  about  this  to  you  till  the  thing  was 
ripe,  but,  faith  !  to-morrow  perhaps  it  will  be  settled.  This 
is  it : 

"  Roguin  has  been  proposing  a  business  speculation  to  me, 
so  safe  that  he  and  one  or  two  of  his  clients,  and  Ragon,  and 
your  uncle  Pillerault,  are  going  into  it.  We  are  to  buy  some 
building  land  near  the  Madeleine.  Roguin  thinks  that  we 
can  buy  it  now  for  a  quarter  of  the  price  it  will  fetch  in  three 
years'  time  when  the  leases  will  be  out,  and  we  shall  be  free 
to  exploit  it.  There  are  six  of  us  ;  each  agrees  to  take  so 
much  ;  I  am  finding  three  hundred  thousand  francs  for  the 
purchase  of  three-eighths.  If  any  of  us  are  short  of  money, 
Roguin  will  advance  it,  taking  a  mortgage  on  the  share  of  the 
land  as  security.  Pillerault,  old  Ragon,  and  I  are  going  to 
take  half  of  it  among  us  ;  but  I  want  to  have  it  registered  in 
my  name,  so  as  to  keep  hold  of  the  handle  of  the  pan  and 
see  how  the  fish  are  frying.  Roguin  himself,  under  the  name 
of  Monsieur  Charles  Claparon,  will  be  joint-owner  with  me  ; 
he  will  give  a  guarantee  to  each  of  his  partners,  and  I  shall 
do  the  same  with  mine.  The  deeds  of  purchase  will  be  private 
deeds  until  we  have  all  the  land  in  our  hands.  Roguin  will 
look  into  it  and  see  which  of  the  purchases  must  be  com- 
pleted, for  he  is  not  sure  that  we  can  dispense  with  intermedi- 
ary registration,  and  yet  transfer  a  separate  title  to  the  buyers 


12  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

when  we  break  up  the  estate  into  separate  lots ;  but  it  would 
take  too  long  to  explain  it  to  you. 

"  When  the  building  land  has  been  paid  for,  we  shall  have 
nothing  to  do  but  fold  our  arms,  and  in  three  years'  time  we 
shall  have  a  million.  Cesarine  will  be  twenty  years  old,  we 
shall  have  sold  the  business,  and  then,  God  willing,  we  will 
go  modestly  toward  greatness." 

"  Well,  but  where  are  the  three  hundred  thousand  francs  to 
come  from?"  asked  Mme.  Birotteau. 

"My  dear  little  woman,  you  know  nothing  of  business. 
There  are  the  hundred  thousand  francs  in  Roguin's  hands  ;  I 
will  pay  them  down.  Then  I  shall  borrow  forty  thousand 
francs  on  the  buildings  and  the  land  that  our  factory  stands 
on,  over  in  the  Faubourg  du  Temple,  and  we  have  twenty 
thousand  francs  in  bills  and  acceptances  in  the  portfolio — 
altogether  that  makes  a  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  francs. 
There  remain  a  hundred  and  forty  thousand  francs  to  be 
raised  ;  I  will  draw  bills  to  the  order  of  Charles  Claparon  the 
banker;  he  will  advance  the  money,  less  the  discount.  And 
there  are  our  three  hundred  thousand  francs  :  and  you  don't 
owe  an  account  until  it  is  due.  When  the  bills  fall  due  we 
shall  be  ready  for  them  with  the  profits  of  the  business.  If 
we  should  find  any  difficulty  in  meeting  them,  Roguin  would 
lend  me  the  money  at  five  per  cent,  on  a  mortgage  on  my 
share  of  the  building  land.  But  there  is  no  need  to  borrow. 
I  have  discovered  a  specific  for  making  the  hair  grow,  a  Com- 
agen  oil.  Livingston  has  put  up  a  hydraulic  press  for  me 
down  yonder  for  the  hazelnuts  ;  all  the  oil  should  be  squeezed 
out  at  once  under  such  strong  pressure.  In  a  year's  time  the 
probabilities  are  that  I  shall  have  made  a  hundred  thousand 
francs  at  least.  I  am  thinking  about  a  placard  with  Down 
with  Wigs  !  for  a  heading.  It  would  make  a  prodigious 
sensation.  You  don't  notice  how  I  lie  awake.  These  three 
months  past  Macassar  Oil  has  not  let  me  sleep.  I  mean  to  do 
for  Macassar  \  " 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAIT.  13 

"  So  these  are  the  fine  plans  that  have  been  running  in  your 
head  for  a  couple  of  months,  and  not  a  word  to  me  about 
them.  And  I  have  just  seen  myself  begging  at  my  own  door; 
what  a  warning  from  heaven  !  There  will  be  nothing  left  to 
us  after  a  while  except  our  eyes  to  cry  with  over  our  troubles. 
Never  shall  you  do  it  so  long  as  I  am  alive ;  do  you  hear, 
Cesar  ?  There  is  some  underhand  work  somewhere  that  you 
do  not  see ;  you  are  so  straightforward  and  honest  that  you 
don't  suspect  others  of  cheating.  What  makes  them  come  to 
offer  you  millions?  You  are  giving  bills ;  you  are  going  be- 
yond your  means;  and  how  if  the  Oil  does  not  take?  Sup- 
pose that  the  money  does  not  come  in — suppose  that  you  do 
not  sell  the  building  lots,  how  are  you  going  to  meet  the  bills? 
With  the  hazelnut  shells  ?  You  want  to  rise  in  the  world  ; 
you  don't  intend  to  have  your  name  over  your  own  store-door 
any  longer ;  you  mean  to  take  down  the  sign — the  Queen  of 
Roses — and  yet  you  are  making  up  rigmaroles  of  prospectuses 
and  placards,  and  Cesar  Birotteau's  name  will  be  posted  up  at 
every  street-corner  and  all  over  the  hoardings,  wherever  there 
is  building  going  on." 

"  Oh,  no  such  thing  !  I  shall  open  a  branch  business  under 
the  name  of  Popinot.  I  shall  take  a  store  somewhere  near 
the  Rue  des  Lombardes,  and  put  in  young  Anselme  Popinot 
to  look  after  it.  I  shall  pay  a  debt  of  gratitude  which  we  owe 
to  Monsieur  and  Madame  Ragon  by  starting  their  nephew  in 
a  business  that  may  make  his  fortune.  The  poor  Ragons  have 
looked  very  seedy  for  some  time  past,  I  have  thought." 

"  There  !  those  people  are  after  your  money." 

"Why,  what  people,  my  charmer?  Your  own  uncle  who 
loves  us  like  his  own  life,  and  comes  to  dine  here  every  Sun- 
day? Then  there  is  that  kind  old  Ragon,  our  predecessor, 
who  plays  boston  with  us;  old  Ragon,  with  a  record  of  forty 
years  of  fair  dealing.  And,  lastly,  do  you  mean  Roguin,  a 
notary  of  Paris,  a  man  of  fifty,  who  has  been  in  practice  for 
twenty-five  years  ?     A  notary  of  Paris  would  be  the   best  of 


14  CASAR  BIROTTEAU. 

the  bunch  if  all  honest  folk  were  not  equally  good.  My 
partners  will  help  me  out  at  a  pinch.  Where  is  the  plot,  dar- 
ling? Look  here,  I  must  give  you  a  piece  of  my  mind.  On 
my  word  as  an  honest  man,  it  weighs  upon  me.  You  have 
always  been  as  suspicious  as  a  cat !  As  soon  as  we  had  five 
sous'  worth  of  goods  in  the  store,  you  began  to  think  that  the 
customers  were  thieves.  A  man  has  to  go  down  on  his  knees 
and  beg  and  pray  of  you  to  allow  your  fortune  to  be  made. 
For  a  daughter  of  Paris  you  have  scarcely  any  ambition  !  If 
it  were  not  for  your  eternal  fears,  there  would  not  be  a  happier 
man  than  I  am.  If  I  had  listened  to  you,  I  should  never 
have  made  the  Pate  des  Sultanes  nor  the  Carminative  Toilet 
Lotion.  We  have  made  a  living  out  of  the  store,  but  it  was 
those  two  discoveries  and  our  soaps  that  brought  in  the  hun- 
dred and  sixty  thousand  francs  which  we  have  over  and  above 
the  business  !  But  for  my  genius,  for  I  have  talent  as  a  per- 
fumer, we  should  be  petty  storekeepers,  hard  put  to  it  to  make 
both  ends  meet,  and  I  should  not  be  one  of  the  notable  mer- 
chants who  elect  the  judges  at  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce ;  I 
should  neither  have  been  a  judge  nor  a  deputy-mayor.  Do  you 
know  what  I  should  have  been  ?  A  storekeeper  like  old  Ragon — 
no  offense  to  him,  for  I  respect  stores  ;  a  store  has  been  the 
making  of  us.  After  selling  perfumery  for  forty  years  we  should 
have  had  three  thousand  livres  a  year,  as  he  has ;  and  as  prices 
go  now,  when  things  are  twice  as  dear  as  they  used  to  be,  we  too 
should  have  had  hardly  enough  to  live  upon.  (Day  after  day, 
it  goes  to  my  heart  more  and  more  to  think  of  that  old  couple. 
I  must  come  at  the  truth  ;  I  will  have  it  out  of  Popinot  to- 
morrow.) Yes,  if  I  had  taken  advice  of  you,  of  you  that  are 
afraid  of  your  own  luck  and  are  always  asking  if  you  will 
have  to-morrow  what  you  hold  to-day,  I  should  have  no  credit, 
nor  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  and  I  should  not  be 
looked  on  as  a  man  who  knows  what  he  is  about.  Oh,  you 
may  shake  your  head  ;  if  this  succeeds,  I  may  be  deputy  for 
Paris  some  day.     Aha  !  I  was  not  named  Cesar  for  nothing  ; 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  15 

everything  has  succeeded  with  me.  This  is  inconceivable  ! 
Everybody  out  of  my  own  house  admits  that  I  have  some 
capacity ;  but  here  at  home,  the  one  person  that  I  want  so 
much  to  please,  and  I  toil  and  moil  to  make  her  happy,  is  just 
the  very  one  who  takes  me  for  a  fool." 

There  was  such  a  depth  of  real  and  constant  affection  in 
these  phrases,  divided  up  by  eloquent  pauses,  and  hurled 
forth  like  cannon  balls  (as  is  the  wont  of  those  who  take  up 
a  recriminating  attitude),  that  Mine.  Birotteau  in  her  secret 
heart  felt  touched,  but,  wife-like,  she  took  advantage  of  the 
love  she  inspired  to  gain  her  own  ends. 

"Very  well,  Birotteau,"  said  she,  "  if  you  love  me,  let  me 
be  happy  in  my  own  way.  Neither  you  nor  I  have  had  any 
education  ;  we  do  not  know  how  to  talk,  nor  how  to  flatter 
like  worldly-wise  people,  and  how  can  you  expect  that  we 
should  succeed  in  office  under  Government  ?  I  myself  should 
be  quite  happy  at  the  Treasury  Farm.  I  have  always  been 
fond  of  animals  and  birds,  and  I  could  spend  my  time  quite 
well  in  looking  after  the  poultry,  and  living  like  a  farmer's 
wife.  Let  us  sell  the  business,  marry  our  Cesarine,  and  let 
your  '  Imogen  '  alone.  We  will  pass  the  winters  in  Paris  in 
our  son-in-law's  house,  and  we  shall  be  happy  ;  nothing  in 
politics  nor  in  business  could  change  our  ways.  Why  should 
you  try  to  eclipse  other  people  ?  Is  not  our  fortune  enough 
for  us  ?  When  you  are  a  millionaire,  will  you  be  able  to  eat 
two  dinners  a  day?  Do  you  want  another  wife!  Look  at 
uncle  Pillerault  !  He  is  wisely  satisfied  with  what  he  has, 
and  spends  his  life  in  doing  good.  What  does  he  want  with 
fine  furniture?  For  I  know  you  have  been  ordering  furni- 
ture ;  I  saw  Braschon  in  the  shop,  and  he  was  not  here  to  buy 
scent.  " 

"Well,  yes,  darling,  there  is  some  furniture  ordered  for 
you.  The  workmen  will  begin  to-morrow  under  an  architect 
recommended  by  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere." 

"  Good  Lord,  have  mercy  upon  us  !  " 


16  CESAR  BIROTTEAV. 

"  Why,  you  are  unreasonable,  pet.  Do  you  think  that, 
fresh  and  pretty  as  you  are,  you  can  go  and  bury  yourself  at 
thirty-seven  at  Chinon  ?  I  myself,  thank  the  Lord,  am  only 
thirty-nine.  Chance  has  opened  up  a  fine  career  to  me,  and 
I  am  going  to  enter  upon  it.  If  I  manage  wisely,  I  can  found 
a  house  famous  among  Paris  citizens,  as  people  used  to  do, 
build  up  a  business,  and  the  Birotteaus  shall  be  like  Roguin, 
Cochin,  Guillaume,  Le  Bas,  Nucingen,  Saillard,  Popinot,  and 
Matifat,  all  of  whom  are  making,  or  have  made,  their  mark 
in  their  quarter.  Come  !  come  !  if  this  speculation  were  not 
as  safe  as  gold  ingots " 

"Safe!" 

"  Yes,  safe.  I  have  been  reckoning  it  out  these  two  months. 
Without  appearing  to  do  so,  I  have  been  making  inquiries  as 
to  building,  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  of  architects  and  con- 
tractors. Monsieur  Grindot,  the  young  architect  who  is  to 
remodel  our  place,  is  in  despair  because  he  has  no  capital  to 
invest  in  our  speculation." 

"  He  knows  that  there  will  be  houses  to  build  ;  he  is  urging 
you  on  so  as  to  gobble  you  up." 

"  Can  people  like  Pillerault,  like  Charles  Claparon,  and 
Roguin  be  taken  in  ?  The  gain  is  as  certain  as  the  profits  on 
the  Pate,  you  see. ' ' 

"But  why  should  Roguin  want  to  speculate,  dear,  when 
he  has  bought  his  practice  and  made  his  fortune?  I  see  him 
go  by  sometimes;  he  looks  as  thoughtful  as  a  minister; 
he  has  an  underhand  look  that  I  do  not  like  ;  he  has  secret 
cares.  In  five  years  he  has  come  to  look  like  an  old  rake. 
Whose  word  have  you  for  it  that  he  will  not  take  to  his 
heels  as  soon  as  your  money  is  in  his  hands?  Such  things 
have  been  known.  Do  we  know  much  about  him  ?  It  is 
true  that  we  have  been  acquainted  for  fifteen  years,  but  he 
is  not  one  that  I  would  put  my  hands  into  the  fire  for.  I 
have  it !  he  has  ozsena ;  he  does  not  live  with  his  wife  ; 
he    has    mistresses   no   doubt,    and    they  are   ruining  him ; 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  17 

there  is  no  other  reason  for  his  low  spirits  that  I  see.  As 
I  dress  in  the  morning,  I  look  through  the  blinds,  and  I 
see  him  going  home  on  foot.  Where  does  he  come  from? 
Nobody  knows.  It  looks  to  me  as  if  he  had  another  es- 
tablishment somewhere  in  town,  and  he  spends  one  way 
and  madame  another. 

"Is  that  a  life  for  a  notary?  If  they  make  fifty  thou- 
sand francs  and  get  through  sixty  thousand,  there  will  be 
an  end  of  the  money  ;  in  twenty  years'  time  they  would  be 
as  bare  as  shorn  lambs;  but  if  a  man  is  used  to  shine, 
he  will  plunder  his  friends  without  mercy.  Charity  should 
properly  begin  at  home.  That  little  rascal  du  Tillet,  who 
used  to  be  with  us,  is  one  of  his  cronies,  and  I  see  nothing 
good  in  that  friendship.  If  he  could  not  find  out  du  Tillet 
he  is  very  blind  ;  and  if  he  knows  him,  why  does  he  make 
so  much  of  him?  You  will  say  that  there  is  something 
between  Roguin's  wife  and  du  Tillet.  Very  well  ;  I  look 
for  no  good  from  a  man  who  has  no  sense  of  honor  where 
his  wife  is  concerned.  And  in  any  case,  aren't  the  owners 
of  the  building  lots  very  stupid  to  sell  the  worth  of  a  hun- 
dred francs  for  a  hundred  sous  ?  If  you  were  to  meet  a 
child  who  did  not  know  what  a  louis  was  worth,  would 
you  not  tell  him  ?  Your  stroke  of  business  looks  to  me 
myself  very  much  like  a  robbery,  no  offense  to  you.1' 

"  Dear  me  !  what  queer  things  women  are  sometimes, 
and  how  they  mix  up  their  ideas  !  If  Roguin  had  never 
meddled  in  the  matter,  you  would  have  said,  '  Stay,  Cesar, 
stop  a  bit ;  you  are  acting  without  consulting  Roguin,  it  will 
come  to  no  good.'  In  this  present  instance  he  is  pledged  as 
it  were,  and  you  tell  me " 

"  No  ;  it  is  a  Monsieur  Claparon." 

"But  a  notary's  name  cannot  appear  in  a  speculation." 

"Then    why  should    he    do  something   against  the    law? 
What  do  you  say  to  that,  you  who  are  such  a  stickler  for  the 
law?" 
2 


18  CESAR  BIRO  TIE  ACT. 

"  Just  let  me  go  on.  Roguin  is  going  into  it  himself,  and 
you  tell  me  that  it  will  come  to  no  good.  Is  that  sensible? 
Again  you  say,  '  He  is  doing  something  against  the  law.' 
But  his  name  will  appear  in  it  if  necessary.  And  now  you 
tell  me  that  'he  is  rich.'  Might  not  people  say  as  much  of 
me  ?  Ragon  and  Pillerault  might  just  as  well  say  of  me, 
'  Why  are  you  going  into  this  when  you  are  wallowing  in 
riches?"' 

"A  tradesman  is  one  thing  and  a  notary  another,"  ob- 
jected Mme.  Birotteau. 

"In  short,  my  conscience  is  quite  clear,"  Cesar  went  on. 
"People  who  sell,  sell  because  they  cannot  help  it  ;  we  are 
no  more  robbing  them  than  we  rob  fund-holders  when  we  buy 
at  seventy-five.  To-day  you  buy  building  lots  at  to-day's 
prices ;  in  two  years'  time  it  will  be  different,  just  as  it  is 
with  rentes.  You  may  be  quite  sure,  Constance-Barbe-Jose- 
phine  Pillerault,  that  you  will  never  catch  Cesar  Birotteau 
doing  anything  that  is  against  the  law,  nor  against  his  con- 
science, nor  unscrupulous,  or  not  strictly  just  and  fair.  That 
a  man  who  has  been  in  business  eighteen  years  should  be 
suspected  in  his  own  family  of  cheating  !  " 

"  Come,  Cesar,  be  pacified  !  A  wife  who  has  known  you 
all  that  time  knows  the  depths  of  your  soul.  You  are  the 
master  after  all.  You  made  the  money,  didn't  you?  It  is 
yours  ;  you  can  spend  it.  We  might  be  brought  to  the  lowest 
depths  of  poverty,  but  neither  your  daughter  nor  I  would  ever 
say  a  single  word  of  reproach.  But  listen.  When  you  in- 
vented the  Pate  des  Sultanes  and  the  Carminative  Toilet 
Lotion,  what  risk  did  you  run?  Five  or  six  thousand  francs 
perhaps.  To-day  you  are  risking  all  you  have  on  a  single 
stake,  and  you  are  not  the  only  player  in  this  game,  and  some 
of  the  others  may  turn  out  sharper  than  you  are. 

"You  could" give  this  ball  and  have  the  rooms  redecorated, 
and  spend  a  thousand  francs  over  it — a  useless  expense,  but 
not  ruinous — but  as  to  the  Madeleine  affair,  I  am  against  it, 


CASAR  BIROTTEAU.  19 

once  and  for  all.  Your  are  a  perfumer ;  be  a  perfumer  and 
not  a  speculator  in  building  land.  We  women  have  an  in- 
stinct that  does  not  lead  us  astray.  I  have  warned  you  ;  now 
act  on  your  own  ideas.  You  have  been  a  judge  at  the  Tri- 
bunal of  Commerce,  you  know  the  law,  you  have  steered  your 
boat  wisely,  and  I  will  follow  you,  Cesar  !  But  I  shall  have 
misgivings  until  I  see  our  fortune  on  a  sound  basis  and  Cesar- 
ine  well  married.  God  send  that  my  dream  was  not  pro- 
phetic !  " 

This  meekness  was  annoying  to  Birotteau.  He  had  recourse 
to  a  simple  stratagem,  which  he  found  useful  on  such  occasions. 

"Listen,  Constance;  I  have  not  really  given  my  word, 
though  it  is  as  good  as  if  I  had." 

"Oh!  Cesar,  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said,  so  let  us 
say  no  more  about  it.  Honor  before  riches.  Come,  get 
into  bed,  dear  ;  there  is  no  firewood  left.  Beside,  it  is  easier 
to  talk  in  bed  if  it  amuses  you.  Oh  !  the  bad  dream  I  had  ! 
Good  Lord,  to  see  yourself 7  Why,  it  was  fearful  !  Cesarine 
and  I  will  make  a  pretty  number  of  novenas  for  the  success 
of  the  land." 

"  Of  course,  the  help  of  God  would  do  us  no  harm," 
Birotteau  said  gravely,  "  but  the  essence  of  hazelnuts  is  a 
power  likewise,  wife.  I  discovered  this,  like  the  Pate  des 
Sultanes,  by  accident ;  the  first  time  it  was  by  opening  a  book, 
but  it  was  an  engraving  of  '  Hero  and  Leander  '  that  sug- 
gested this  new  idea  to  me.  A  woman,  you  know,  pouring 
oil  on  her  lover's  head;  isn't  it  nice?  The  most  certain 
speculations  are  those  that  are  based  on  vanity,  self-love,  or 
a  regard  for  appearances.  Those  sentiments  will  never  be 
extinct." 

"Alas,  I  see  that  clearly." 

"At  a  certain  age,"  pursued  Birotteau,  "  men  will  do  any- 
thing to  grow  hair  on  their  heads  when  they  have  none. 
Hairdressers  have  told  me  for  some  time  past  that  they  are 
selling  hair-dyes  and  all  sorts  of  drugs  that  are  said  to  pro- 


20  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

mote  the  growth  of  the  hair  as  well  as  Macassar  Oil.  Since 
the  peace,  men  live  more  among  women,  and  women  do  not 
like  bald  heads,  eh !  eh  !  pet !  So  the  demand  for  that 
class  of  article  can  be  explained  by  the  political  situation. 

"A  composition  which  would  keep  your  hair  in  good  con- 
dition would  sell  like  bread,  and  all  the  more  so  because  the 
essence  will  doubtless  be  approved  by  the  Academie  des 
Sciences.  Perhaps  kind  Monsieur  Vauquelin  will  do  me 
another  good  turn.  I  shall  go  to  submit  my  notion  to  him 
to-morrow,  and  ask  him  to  accept  that  engraving  which  I  have 
found  at  last  after  inquiring  for  it  for  two  years  in  Germany. 
Monsieur  Vauquelin  is  engaged  in  analyzing  hair,  precisely 
the  subject,  so  Chiffreville  (who  is  associated  with  him  in  the 
production  of  chemicals)  tells  me.  If  my  discovery  concurs 
with  his,  my  essence  will  be  bought  by  both  sexes.  There  is 
a  fortune  in  my  idea,  I  repeat.  Good  heavens !  I  cannot 
sleep  for  it.  Eh  !  luckily,  little  Popinot  has  the  finest  head 
of  hair  in  the  world.  With  a  young  lady  in  the  shop  whose 
hair  should  reach  to  the  ground,  and  who  should  say  (if  the 
thing  is  possible  without  sinning  against  God  or  your  neighbor) 
that  the  Comagen  Oil  (for  it  is  decidedly  an  oil)  counts  for 
something  in  bringing  that  about ;  all  the  grizzled  heads  will 
be  down  upon  it  like  poverty  upon  the  world.  And  I  say, 
dearie,  how  about  your  ball  ?  I  am  not  spiteful,  but  I  really 
should  like  to  have  that  little  rogue  of  a  du  Tillet,  who 
swaggers  about  and  never  sees  me  on  'Change.  He  knows 
that  I  know  something  that  is  not  pretty  about  him.  Perhaps 
I  let  him  off  too  easily.  How  funny  it  is,  wife,  that  one 
should  always  be  punished  for  good  actions ;  here  below,  of 
course  !  I  have  been  like  a  father  to  him  ;  you  do  not  know 
all  that  I  have  done  for  him." 

"  Simply  to  hear  you  talk  of  him  makes  my  flesh  creep. 
If  you  had  known  what  he  intended  to  do  to  you,  you  would 
not  have  kept  the  theft  of  three  thousand  francs  so  quiet  (for 
I  have  guessed  how  the  thing  was  arranged).     If  you  had  put 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  21 

him  in  the  police  court,  perhaps  you  might  have  done  a  good 
many  people  a  service." 

"  What  did  he  mean  to  do  to  me?" 

"Nothing.  Birotteau,  if  you  were  inclined  to  listen  to  me 
to-night,  I  would  give  you  a  bit  of  sound  advice,  and  that  is 
to  let  du  Tillet  alone." 

"  Would  not  people  think  it  very  strange  if  I  were  to  forbid 
an  old  assistant  my  house  after  I  had  been  his  surety  for  twenty 
thousand  francs  when  he  first  started  in  business  for  himself? 
There,  let  us  do  good  for  its  own  sake.  And  perhaps  du 
Tillet  has  mended  his  ways." 

"  Everything  must  be  put  topsy-turvy  here  !  " 

"  What  is  this  about  topsy-turvy  ?  Why,  it  will  all  be  ruled 
like  a  sheet  of  music.  So  you  have  forgotten  already  what  I 
have  just  told  you  about  the  staircase,  and  how  I  have  ar- 
ranged with  Cayron,  the  umbrella  merchant  next  door,  to 
take  part  of  his  house  !  He  and  I  must  go  together  in  the 
morning  to  see  his  landlord,  Monsieur  Molineux.  I  have  as 
much  business  on  hand  to-morrow  as  a  minister." 

"You  have  made  me  dizzy  with  your  plans,"  said  Con- 
stance; "I  am  muddled  with  them;  and,  beside,  Birotteau, 
I  am  sleepy." 

"  Good  -morning,"  returned  her  husband.  "Just  listen — 
I  say  good-morning,  because  it  is  morning  now,  pet !  Ah  ! 
she  has  dropped  off  to  sleep,  dear  child  !  There  !  you  shall 
be  the  richest  of  the  rich,  or  my  name  will  not  be  Cesar  any 
longer,"  and  a  few  minutes  later  Constance  and  Cesar  were 
peacefully  snoring. 

A  rapid  glance  over  the  previous  history  of  this  household 
will  confirm  the  impression  which  should  have  been  conveyed 
by  the  friendly  dispute  between  the  two  principal  personages 
in  this  scene,  in  which  the  lives  of  a  retail  storekeeper  and  his 
wife  are  depicted.  This  sketch  will  explain,  moreover,  the 
strange  chances  by  which  Cesar  Birotteau  became  a  perfumer, 


22  C&SAR   BIROTTEAV. 

a  deputy-mayor,  an  ex-officer  of  the  National  Guard,  and  a 
chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  By  laying  bare  the  depths 
of  his  character  and  the  springs  of  his  greatness,  it  will  be 
possible  to  comprehend  how  it  is  that  the  vicissitudes  of  com- 
merce, which  strong  heads  turn  to  their  advantage,  become 
irreparable  catastrophes  for  weaker  spirits.  Events  are  never 
absolute ;  their  consequences  depend  entirely  upon  the  indi- 
vidual. The  misfortune  which  is  a  stepping-stone  for  genius 
becomes  a  chapel  for  the  Christian,  a  treasure  for  a  quick- 
witted man,  and  for  weaklings  an  abyss. 

A  cotter,  Jacques  Birotteau  by  name,  living  near  Chinon, 
took  unto  himself  a  wife,  a  domestic  servant  in  the  house  of 
a  lady,  who  employed  him  in  her  vineyard.  Three  sons  were 
born  to  them ;  his  wife  died  at  the  birth  of  the  third,  and  the 
poor  fellow  did  not  long  survive  her.  Then  the  mistress,  out 
of  affection  for  her  maid,  adopted  the  oldest  of  the  cotter's 
boys;  she  brought  him  up  with  her  own  son,  and  placed  him 
in  a  seminary.  This  Francois  Birotteau  took  orders,  and 
during  the  Revolution  led  the  wandering  life  of  priests  who 
would  not  take  the  oath,  hiding  from  those  who  hunted  them 
down  like  wild  beasts,  lucky  to  meet  with  no  worse  fate  than 
the  guillotine.  At  the  time  when  this  story  begins  he  was  a 
priest  of  the  cathedral  at  Tours,  and  had  but  once  left  that 
city  to  see  his  brother  Cesar.  On  that  occasion  the  traffic  in 
the  streets  of  Paris  so  bewildered  the  good  man  that  he  dared 
not  leave  his  room;  he  called  the  cabs  "half-coaches,"  and 
was  astonished  at  everything.  He  stayed  one  week,  and  then 
went  back  to  Tours,  promising  himself  that  he  would  never 
revisit  the  capital. 

The  vine-dresser's  second  son,  Jean  Birotteau,  was  drawn 
by  the  army,  and  during  the  early  wars  of  the  Revolution 
promptly  became  a  captain. '  At  the  battle  of  the  Trebbia, 
Macdonald  called  for  volunteers  to  storm  a  battery,  and  Con- 
tain Jean  Birotteau  charged  with  his  company  and  fell.     \% 


C&SAR    BIROTTEAZT.  23 

appeared  to  be  the  destiny  of  the  Birotteaus  that  other  men 
should  supplant  them,  or  that  events  should  be  too  strong  for 
them  wherever  they  might  be. 

The  youngest  son  is  the  chief  actor  in  this  scene.  When 
Cesar  was  fourteen  years  old,  and  could  read,  write,  and 
cipher,  he  left  the  district,  and  with  one  louis  in  his  pocket  set 
out  on  foot  for  Paris  to  make  his  fortune.  On  the  recommen- 
dation of  an  apothecary  in  Tours,  M.  and  Mme.  Ragon,  re- 
tail perfumers,  took  him  as  errand  boy.  Cesar  at  that  time 
was  possessed  of  a  pair  of  hobnailed  shoes,  a  pair  of  breeches, 
blue  stockings,  a  sprigged  vest,  a  countryman's  jacket,  three 
ample  shirts  of  good  linen,  and  a  stout  walking-cane.  His 
hair  might  be  clipped  like  a  chorister's,  but  he  was  a  solidly 
built  Tourangeau ;  and  any  tendency  to  the  laziness  rampant 
in  his  district  was  counteracted  in  him  by  a  strong  desire  to 
make  his  way  in  the  world.  Perhaps  he  was  lacking  some- 
what in  brains  as  in  education,  but  he  had  inherited  upright 
instincts  and  scrupulous  integrity  from  his  mother,  who  had 
"  a  heart  of  gold,"  as  they  say  in  Touraine. 

Cesar  was  paid  six  francs  a  month  by  way  of  wages.  He 
boarded  in  the  house,  and  slept  on  a  truckle-bed  in  the  attics 
next  to  the  servant's  room.  The  clerks  showed  him  how  to 
fetch  and  carry  and  tie  up  parcels,  to  sweep  out  the  store  and 
the  pavement  before  it,  and  made  a  butt  of  him,  breaking 
him  in  to  business  after  the  manner  of  their  kind,  and  contriv- 
ing to  blend  a  good  deal  of  amusement  (for  themselves)  with 
his  instruction.  M.  and  Mme.  Ragon  spoke  to  him  as  if  he 
were  a  dog.  Nobody  cared  how  tired  the  apprentice  might 
be,  and  he  was  often  very  tired  and  footsore  of  a  night  after 
tramping  over  the  pavements,  and  his  shoulders  often  ached. 
The  principle  "each  for  himself,"  that  gospel  of  great  cities, 
put  in  application,  made  Cesar's  life  in  Paris  a  very  hard  one. 
He  used  to  cry  sometimes  when  the  day  was  over  and  he 
thought  of  Touraine,  where  the  peasant  works  leisurely  and 
the  mason   takes  his  time  about  laying  a  stone,  and  toil  is. 

b 


24  CESAR   BIROTTEAU. 

judiciously  tempered  by  idleness ;  but  he  usually  fell  asleep 
before  he  reached  the  point  of  thinking  of  running  away,  for 
his  morning's  round  of  work  awaited  him,  and  he  did  his 
duty  with  the  instinctive  obedience  of  a  yard  dog.  If  he 
happened  to  complain,  the  first  clerk  would  smile  jocosely. 
"Ah,  my  boy,"  said  he,  "  life  is  not  all  roses  at  the  Queen 
of  Roses,  and  larks  don't  drop  ready  roasted  into  your  mouth  ; 
first  catch  your  lark,  and  then  you  want  the  other  things  before 
you  cook  it." 

The  cook,  a  stout  Picarde,  kept  the  best  morsels  for  her- 
self, and  never  spoke  to  Cesar  but  to  complain  of  M.  and 
Mme.  Ragon,  who  left  her  nothing  to  purloin.  On  one 
Sunday  at  the  end  of  every  month  she  was  obliged  to  stop  in 
the  house,  and  then  she  broke  ground  with  Cesar.  Ursule, 
scoured  for  Sunday,  was  a  charming  creature  in  the  eyes  of 
the  poor  errand  boy,  who,  but  for  a  chance,  was  about  to 
make  shipwreck  on  the  first  sunken  reef  in  his  career.  Like 
all  human  beings  who  have  no  one  to  care  for  them,  he  fell  in 
love  with  the  first  woman  who  gave  him  a  kind  glance.  The 
cook  took  Cesar  under  her  wing  and  secret  love  passages 
followed,  at  which  the  assistants  jeered  unmercifully.  Luck- 
ily, two  years  later,  the  cook  threw  over  Cesar  for  a  young 
runaway  from  the  army,  a  fellow-countryman  of  hers  who  was 
hiding  in  Paris;  and  the  Picard,  a  landowner  to  the  extent 
of  several  acres,  allowed  himself  to  be  drawn  into  a  marriage 
with  Ursule. 

But  during  those  two  years  the  cook  fed  her  lad  Cesar  well, 
and  explained  to  him  the  seamy  side  of  not  a  few  of  the  mys- 
teries of  Paris.  Motives  of  jealousy  led  her  to  instil  into  him 
a  perfect  horror  of  low  haunts,  whose  perils  seemingly  were  not 
unknown  to  her.  In  1792  Cesar,  the  basely  deserted,  had 
grown  accustomed  to  his  life ;  his  feet  were  used  to  the  pave- 
ments, his  shoulders  accommodated  to  packing-cases,  his  wits 
to  what  he  called  the  humbug  of  Paris.  So,  when  Ursule 
threw  him  over,  he  promptly  took  comfort,  for  she  had  not 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  25 

realized  any  of  his  intuitive  ideas  as  to  sentiments.  Lasciv- 
ious, bad-tempered,  fawning,  and  rapacious,  a  selfish  woman, 
given  to  drink,  she  had  jarred  on  Birotteau's  unsophisticated 
nature  and  had  opened  out  no  fair  future  to  him.  At  times 
the  poor  boy  saw  with  dismay  that  he  was  bound  by  the 
strongest  of  ties,  for  a  simple  heart,  to  a  creature  with  whom  he 
had  no  sympathy.  By  the  time  that  he  was  set  free  he  had 
developed  and  had  reached  the  age  of  sixteen.  His  wits  had 
been  sharpened  by  Ursule  and  by  the  clerk's  jokes ;  he  set 
himself  to  learn  the  business.  Intelligence  was  hidden  beneath 
his  simplicity.  He  watched  the  customers  with  shrewd  eyes. 
In  his  spare  moments  he  asked  for  explanations  concerning 
the  goods ;  he  remembered  where  everything  was  kept ;  one 
fine  day  he  knew  the  goods,  prices,  and  quantities  in  stock 
better  than  the  newer  comers,  and  thenceforward  M.  and 
Mme.  Ragon  looked  on  him  as  a  settled  institution. 

When  the  requisition  of  the  terrible  year  II.  made  a  clean 
sweep  of  Citizen  Ragon's  house,  Cesar  Birotteau,  promoted  to 
be  second  assistant,  improved  his  position,  received  a  salary 
of  fifty  livres  oer  month,  and  seated  himself  at  the  Radons' 
table  with  joy  unspeakable.  The  second  assistant  at  the  sign 
of  the  Queen  of  Roses  had  by  this  time  saved  six  hundred 
francs,  and  he  now  had  a  room  filled  with  furniture  such  as  he 
had  for  a  long  time  coveted,  in  which  he  could  keep  the  be- 
longings which  he  had  accumulated,  under  lock  and  key.  On 
Decadis,*  dressed  after  the  fashion  of  an  epoch  which  affected 
rough  and  homely  ways,  the  quiet,  humble  peasant  lad  looked 
at  least  the  equal  of  other  young  citizens,  and  in  this  way  he 
overleaped  the  social  barriers  which  in  domestic  life  would,  in 
different  times,  have  been  raised  between  the  peasant  and  the 
trading  classes.  Toward  the  end  of  that  year  his  honesty  won 
for  him  the  control  of  the  till.  The  awe-inspiring  Citizeness 
Ragon  saw  to  his  linen,  and  husband  and  wife  treated  him 
like  one  of  the  family. 

*  Each  tenth  day,  replacing  Sunday. 


26  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

In  Vendemiaire  1794  Cesar  Birotteau,  being  possessed  of 
one  hundred  gold  louis,  exchanged  them  for  six  thousand 
francs  in  assignats,  bought  rentes  therewith  at  thirty  francs, 
paid  for  them  when  depreciated  prices  ruled  on  the  Exchange, 
and  hoarded  his  stock-receipt  with  unspeakable  delight.  From 
that  day  forward  he  followed  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  funds  and 
the  course  of  events  with  a  secret  anxiety  that  made  his  heart 
beat  fast  at  the  tidings  of  every  victory  or  defeat  which  marked 
the  history  of  that  period. 

At  this  critical  period  M.  Ragon,  sometime  purveyor  of 
perfumes  to  her  majesty  Queen  Marie-Antoinette,  confided  to 
Cesar  Birotteau  his  attachment  to  the  fallen  tyrants.  This 
confidence  was  an  event  of  capital  importance  in  Cesar's  life. 
The  Tourangeau  was  transformed  into  a  fanatical  adherent  of 
royalty  in  the  course  of  the  evening  conversations  after  the 
shutters  were  put  up,  the  books  posted,  and  the  streets  quiet 
without.  Cesar  was  simply  obeying  his  natural  instincts. 
His  imagination  kindled  at  the  tale  of  the  virtuous  deeds  of 
Louis  XVI.,  followed  by  anecdotes  told  by  husband  and  wife 
of  the  good  qualities  of  the  Queen  whom  they  extolled.  His 
tender  heart  was  revolted  by  the  horrible  fate  of  the  two 
crowned  heads,  struck  off  but  a  few  paces  from  the  store-door, 
and  he  conceived  a  hatred  for  a  system  of  government  which 
poured  forth  innocent  blood  that  cost  nothing  to  shed. 

Commercial  instincts  made  him  quick  to  see  the  death  of 
trade  in  the  law  of  maximum  prices,  and  in  political  storms, 
which  always  bode  ill  to  business.  In  his  quality  of  perfumer, 
moreover,  he  loathed  a  Revolution  that  forbade  powder  and 
was  responsible  for  the  fashion  of  wearing  the  hair  cropped. 
The  tranquillity  secured  to  the  nation  by  an  absolute  monarchy 
seemed  to  be  the  one  possible  condition  in  which  life  and 
property  would  be  safe,  so  he  waxed  zealous  for  a  monarchy. 

M.  Ragon,  finding  so  apt  a  disciple,  made  him  his  assistant 
in  the  shop,  and  initiated  him  into  the  secrets  of  the  Queen 
of  Roses.     Some  of  the  customers  were  the  most  active  and 


CiSAR  BIROTTEAU.  27 

devoted  of  the  secret  agents  of  the  Bourbons  and  kept  up  a 
correspondence  between  Paris  and  the  west.  Carried  away 
by  youthful  enthusiasm,  electrified  by  contact  with  such  men 
as  Georges,  La  Billardiere,  Montauran,  Bauvan,  Longuy, 
Manda,  Bernier,  du  Guenic,  and  Fontaine,  Cesar  flung  him- 
self into  the  conspiracy  of  the  13th  Vendemiaire,  when  Roy- 
alists and  Terrorists  combined  against  the  dying  Convention. 

Cesar  had  the  honor  of  warring  against  Napoleon  on  the 
steps  of  the  church  of  Saint-Roch,  and  was  wounded  at  the 
beginning  of  the  action.  Every  one  knows  the  result  of  this 
attempt.  The  obscurity  from  which  Barms'  aide-de-camp 
then  emerged  was  Birotteau's  salvation.  A  few  friends  carried 
the  bellicose  counterhand  home  to  the  Queen  of  Roses,  where 
he  lay  in  hiding  in  the  garret,  nursed  by  Mme.  Ragon,  and 
lucky  to  be  forgotten.  Cesar's  military  courage  had  been 
nothing  but  a  flash.  During  his  month  of  convalescence  he 
came  to  some  sound  conclusions  as  to  the  ludicrous  alliance 
of  politics  and  perfumery.  If  a  Royalist  he  remained,  he 
made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  be  simply  and  solely  a  Roy- 
alist perfumer,  that  he  would  never  compromise  himself  again, 
and  he  threw  himself  body  and  soul  into  his  calling. 

After  the  18th  Brumaire,  M.  and  Mme.  Ragon,  despairing 
of  the  Royalist  cause,  determined  to  retire  from  the  perfumery 
trade,  to  live  like  respectable  private  citizens,  and  to  cease 
to  meddle  in  politics.  If  they  were  to  receive  the  full  value 
of  their  business,  it  behooved  them  to  find  a  man  who  had 
more  honesty  than  ambition,  and  more  homely  sense  than 
brilliancy,  so  Ragon  broached  the  matter  to  his  first  assistant. 
Birotteau  hesitated.  He  was  twenty  years  old,  with  a  thou- 
sand francs  a  year  invested  in  the  public  funds;  it  was  his 
ambition  to  go  to  live  near  Chinon  as  soon  as  he  should  have 
fifteen  hundred  francs  a  year,  and  the  First  Consul,  after  con- 
solidating his  position  at  the  Tuileries,  should  have  consoli- 
dated the  national  debt.  He  asked  himself  why  he  should 
risk  his  little  honestly  earned  independence  in  business.     He 


28  CESAR  BlROTTEAU. 

had  never  expected  to  make  so  much  wealth ;  it  was  entirely 
owing  to  chances  which  are  only  embraced  in  youth;  and 
now  he  was  thinking  of  taking  a  wife  in  Touraine,  a  woman 
who  should  have  an  equal  fortune,  so  that  he  might  buy  and 
cultivate  a  little  property  called  the  Treasury  Farm,  a  bit  of 
land  on  which  he  had  set  longing  eyes  since  he  had  come 
to  man's  estate.  He  dreamed  of  adding  more  land  to  the 
Treasury  Farm,  of  making  a  thousand  crowns  a  year,  of  lead- 
ing a  happy  and  obscure  life  there.  He  was  on  the  point  of 
refusing  the  perfumer's  offer  when  love  suddenly  altered  his 
former  resolutions  and  multiplied  the  sum-total  of  his  ambi- 
tions by  ten. 

Since  Ursule's  base  desertion,  Cesar  had  led  a  steady  life; 
this  was  partly  a  consequence  of  hard  work,  partly  a  dread  of 
the  risks  run  in  pursuit  of  pleasure  in  Paris.  Desire  that  re- 
mains unsatisfied  becomes  a  craving,  and  marriage  for  the 
lower  middle  classes  becomes  a  fixed  idea,  for  it  is  the  one 
way  open  to  them  of  winning  and  appropriating  a  woman. 
Cesar  Birotteau  was  in  this  case.  The  first  assistant  was  the 
responsible  person  at  the  Queen  of  Roses  ;  he  had  not  a  mo- 
ment to  spare  for  amusement.  In  such  a  life  the  craving  is 
still  more  imperatively  felt ;  so  it  happened  that  the  apparition 
of  a  handsome  girl,  to  whom  a  dissipated  young  fellow  would 
scarcely  have  given  a  thought,  was  bound  to  make  the  greatest 
impression  on  the  steady  Cesar. 

One  fine  June  day,  as  he  was  about  to  cross  the  Pont  Marie 
to  the  He  Saint-Louis,  he  saw  a  girl  standing  in  the  doorway 
of  a  corner  store  on  the  Quai  d'Anjou.  Constance  Pillerault 
was  a  forewoman  in  a  dry  goods  establishment,  at  the  sign  of 
the  Little  Sailor,  a  pioneer  instance  of  a  kind  of  store  which 
has  since  spread  all  over  Paris,  with  painted  signboards  more 
or  less  in  evidence,  flying  flags,  much  display.  Shawls  are 
suspended  in  the  windows,  and  piles  of  cravats  erected  like 
card  castles,  together  with  countless  devices  to  attract  custom, 
ribbon  streamers,  showcards,  notices  of  fixed  prices ;  optical 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  29 

illusions  and  effects  carried  to  the  pitch  of  perfection  which 
has  made  of  store  windows  the  fairyland  of  commerce. 

The  low  prices  asked  at  the  sign  of  the  Little  Sailor  for  the 
goods  described  as  "  novelties  "  had  brought  this  store,  in 
one  of  the  quietest  and  least  fashionable  quarters  of  Paris,  an 
unheard-of  influx  of  custom. 

The  aforesaid  young  lady  behind  the  counter  was  as  cele- 
brated for  her  beauty  as  "La  belle  Limonadiere  "  of  the 
Cafe  des  Milles  Colonnes  at  a  later  day,  and  not  a  few  others 
whose  unfortunate  lot  it  has  been  to  attract  faces,  young  and 
old,  more  numerous  than  the  paving-stones  of  Paris,  to  the 
windows  of  milliners'  stores  and  cafes.  The  first  assistant 
from  the  Queen  of  Roses,  whose  life  was  spent  between  Saint- 
Roch  and  the  Rue  de  la  Sourdiere,  in  the  daily  routine  of 
the  perfumery  business,  did  not  so  much  as  suspect  the  exist- 
ence of  the  Little  Sailor,  for  retailers  in  Paris  know  very 
little  of  each  other. 

Cesar  was  so  violently  smitten  with  the  beautiful  Constance 
that  he  hurried  tempestuously  into  the  Little  Sailor  to  bargain 
for  a  half-dozen  linen  shirts.  Long  did  he  haggle  over  the 
price,  bale  after  bale  of  linen  was  displayed  for  his  inspection  ; 
he  behaved  exactly  like  an  Englishwoman  in  a  humor  for 
shopping.  The  young  lady  condescended  to  interest  herself 
in  Cesar's  purchase  ;  perceiving,  by  certain  signs  which  women 
understand,  that  he  had  come  to  the  shop  more  for  the  sake 
of  the  saleswoman  than  for  her  goods.  He  gave  his  name 
and  address  to  the  young  lady,  who  became  quite  indifferent 
to  the  customer's  admiration  as  soon  as  he  had  made  his  pur- 
chase. The  poor  assistant  had  done  but  little  to  gain  Ursule's 
good  graces ;  if  he  had  been  sheepish  then,  love  now  made 
him  more  sheepish  still  ;  he  did  not  dare  to  say  a  syllable, 
and  was,  moreover,  too  much  dazzled  to  note  the  indifference 
which  succeeded  to  the  smiles  of  this  siren  of  commerce. 

Every  evening  for  a  week  he  took  up  his  post  before  the 
Little  Sailor,  hanging  about  for  a  glance  as  a  dog  waits  for  a 


30  CESAR   BlROTTEAtJ. 

bone  at  a  kitchen-door ;  regardless  of  the  gibes  in  which  the 
clerks  and  saleswomen  indulged  at  his  expense ;  making  way 
meekly  for  customers  or  passers-by,  watchful  of  every  little 
change  that  took  place  in  the  store.  A  few  days  later,  he 
again  entered  the  paradise  where  his  angel  dwelt,  not  so 
much  to  purchase  pocket-handkerchiefs  of  her  as  with  a  view 
of  communicating  a  luminous  idea  to  the  angel's  mind. 

"  If  you  should  require  any  perfumery,  mademoiselle,"  he 
remarked,  as  he  paid  the  bill,  "  I  could  supply  you  in  the 
same  way." 

Constance  Pillerault  daily  received  brilliant  proposals  in 
which  there  was  never  any  mention  of  marriage ;  and  though 
her  heart  was  as  pure  as  her  white  forehead,  it  was  not  until 
the  indefatigable  Cesar  had  proved  his  love  by  six  months  of 
strategical  operations  that  she  deigned  to  receive  his  atten- 
tions. Even  then  she  would  not  commit  herself.  Prudence 
had  been  demanded  of  her  by  the  multitudinous  number  of 
her  admirers — wholesale  wine  merchants,  well-to-do  bar- 
keepers, and  others,  who  made  eyes  at  her.  The  lover  found 
a  supporter  in  her  guardian,  M.  Claude-Joseph  Pillerault,  an 
iron-monger  on  the  Quai  de  la  Ferraille,  a  discovery  made  by 
the  secret  espionage  which  is  pre-eminently  a  lover's  shift. 

In  this  rapid  sketch,  it  is  impossible  to  describe  the  delights 
of  this  harmless  Parisian  love-intrigue  ;  the  little  extravagances 
characteristic  of  the  clerk — the  first  melons  of  the  season,  the 
little  dinners  at  Venua's,  followed  by  the  theatre,  the  drives 
into  the  country  in  a  cab  on  Sunday — must  be  passed  over  in 
silence.  Cesar  was  not  a  positively  handsome  young  fellow, 
but  there  was  nothing  in  his  appearance  to  repel  love.  Life 
in  Paris  and  days  spent  in  a  dark  store  had  toned  down  the 
high  color  natural  to  the  peasant  lad.  His  thick,  black  hair, 
his  Norman  breadth  of  shoulder,  his  sturdy  limbs,  his  simple, 
straightforward  look,  all  contributed  to  prepossess  people  in 
his  favor.  Uncle  Pillerault,  the  responsible  guardian  of  his 
brother's  child,  made  various  inquiries  about  the  Tourangeau, 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  31 

and  gave  his  consent;  and,  in  the  fair  month  of  May,  1800, 
Mile.  Pillerault  promised  to  marry  Cesar  Birotteau.  He 
nearly  fainted  with  joy  when  Constance-Barbe-Josephine 
accepted  him  as  her  husband  under  a  lime  tree  at  Sceaux. 

"You  will  have  a  good  husband,  my  little  girl,"  said  M. 
Pillerault.  "He  has  a  warm  heart  and  sentiments  of  honor. 
He  is  as  straight  as  a  line,  and  as  good  as  the  Child  Jesus ; 
he  is  a  king  of  men,  in  short." 

Constance  put  away  once  and  for  all  the  dreams  of  a 
brilliant  future,  which,  like  most  store-girls,  she  had  some- 
times indulged.  She  meant  to  be  a  faithful  wife  and  a  good 
mother,  and  took  up  this  life  in  accordance  with  the  religious 
programme  of  the  middle  classes.  After  all,  this  part  suited 
her  ideas  much  better  than  the  dangerous  vanities  tempting 
to  a  youthful  Parisian  imagination.  Constance's  intelligence 
was  a  narrow  one ;  she  was  the  typical  small  tradesman's  wife, 
who  always  grumbles  a  little  over  her  work,  who  refuses  a 
thing  at  the  outset,  and  is  vexed  when  she  is  taken  at  her 
word  ;  whose  restless  activity  takes  all  things,  from  cash-box 
to  kitchen,  as  its  province,  and  supervises  everything,  from 
the  weightiest  business  transactions  down  to  almost  invisible 
darns  in  the  household  linen.  Such  a  woman  scolds  while 
she  loves,  and  can  only  conceive  ideas  of  the  very  simplest ; 
only  the  small  change,  as  it  were,  of  thought  passes  current 
with  her ;  she  argues  about  everything,  lives  in  chronic  fear 
of  the  unknown,  makes  constant  forecasts,  and  is  always 
thinking  of  the  future.  Her  statuesque  yet  girlish  beauty, 
her  engaging  looks,  her  freshness,  prevented  Cesar  from  think- 
ing of  her  shortcomings  ;  and,  moreover,  she  made  up  for 
them  by  a  woman's  sensitive  conscientiousness,  an  excessive 
thrift,  by  her  fanatical  love  of  work,  and  genius  as  a  sales- 
woman. 

Constance  was  just  eighteen  years  old,  and  the  possessor  of 
eleven  thousand  francs.  Cesar,  in  whom  love  had  developed 
the  most  unbounded  ambition,  bought  the  perfumery  business, 


32  CESAR   BIROTTEAU. 

and  transplanted  the  Queen  of  Roses  to  a  handsome  store 
near  the  Place  Vendome.  He  was  only  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
married  to  a  beautiful  and  adored  wife,  and  almost  the  owner 
of  his  establishment,  for  he  had  paid  three-fourths  of  the 
amount.  He  saw  (how  should  he  have  seen  otherwise  ?)  the 
future  in  fair  colors,  which  seemed  fairer  still  as  he  measured 
his  career  from  its  starting-point. 

Roguin  (Ragon's  notary)  drew  up  the  marriage-contract,  and 
gave  sage  counsels  to  the  young  perfumer  ;  he  it  was  who  in- 
terfered when  the  latter  was  about  to  complete  the  purchase 
of  the  business  with  his  wife's  money.  "  Just  keep  the  money 
by  you,  my  boy  ;  ready  money  is  sometimes  a  handy  thing  in 
a  business,"  he  had  said. 

Birotteau  gazed  at  the  notary  in  admiration,  fell  into  the 
habit  of  consulting  him,  and  made  a  friend  of  Roguin.  Like 
Ragon  and  Pillerault,  he  had  so  much  faith  in  notaries  as  a 
class  that  he  placed  himself  in  Roguin's  hands  without  admit- 
ting a  doubt  of  him.  Thanks  to  this  advice,  Cesar  started 
business  with  the  eleven  thousand  francs  brought  him  by  Con- 
stance; and  would  not  have  "changed  places"  with  the 
First  Consul,  however  brilliant  Napoleon's  lot  might  seem 
to  be. 

At  first  the  Birotteau  establishment  had  but  one  servant- 
maid.  They  lodged  on  the  mezzanine  floor  above  the  store. 
In  this  sort  of  den,  passably  furnished  by  an  upholsterer,  the 
newly  wedded  pair  entered  upon  a  perennial  honeymoon. 
Mine.  Cesar  at  her  cash  desk  was  a  marvel  to  see.  Her 
famous  beauty  exercised  an  enormous  influence  on  the  sales ; 
the  dandies  of  the  Empire  talked  of  nothing  but  the  lovely 
Mme.  Birotteau.  If  Cesar's  political  principles  were  tainted 
with  royalism,  it  was  acknowledged  that  his  business  princi- 
ples were  above  suspicion ;  and  if  some  of  his  fellow-tradesmen 
envied  him  his  luck,  he  was  believed  to  deserve  it.  That 
shot  on  the  steps  of  the  church  of  Saint-Roch  had  gained  him 
a  certain  reputation — he  was  looked  upon  as  a  brave  man,  and 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  38 

a  man  deep  in  political  secrets  ;  though  he  had  nothing  of  a 
soldier's  courage  in  his  composition,  and  not  even  a  rudi- 
mentary political  notion  in  his  head. 

On  these  data  the  good  folk  of  the  arrondissement  made 
him  a  captain  of  the  National  Guard,  but  he  was  cashiered  by 
Napoleon  (according  to  Birotteau,  that  matter  of  Vendemiaire 
still  rankled  in  the  First  Consul's  mind),  and  thenceforward 
Cesar  was  invested  with  a  certain  halo  of  martyrdom,  cheaply 
acquired,  which  made  him  interesting  to  opponents  and  gave 
him  a  certain  importance. 

Here,  in  brief,  is  the  history  of  this  household,  so  happy  in 
itself,  and  disturbed  by  none  but  the  ever-recurring  business 
cares. 

During  the  first  year,  Cesar  instructed  his  wife  in  all  the 
ins  and  outs  of  the  perfumery  business,  which  she  was  ad- 
mirably quick  to  grasp ;  she  might  have  been  brought  into  the 
world  for  that  sole  purpose,  so  well  did  she  adapt  herself  to 
her  customers.  The  result  of  the  stocktaking  at  the  end  of 
the  year  alarmed  the  ambitious  perfumer.  After  deducting  all 
expenses,  he  might  perhaps  hope,  in  twenty  years'  time,  to 
make  the  modest  sum  of  a  hundred  thousand  francs,  the  price 
of  his  felicity.  He  determined  then  and  there  to  find  some 
speedier  road  to  fortune,  and,  by  way  of  a  beginning,  to  be  a 
manufacturer  as  well  as  a  retailer. 

Acting  against  his  wife's  counsel,  he  took  the  lease  of  a 
shed  on  some  building  land  in  the  Faubourg  du  Temple,  and 
painted  up  thereon,  in  huge  letters,  Cesar  Birotteau' s  Fac- 
tory. He  enticed  a  workman  from  Grasse,  and  with  him 
began  to  manufacture  several  kinds  of  soap,  essences,  and 
eau-de-cologne,  on  the  system  of  half-profits.  The  partnership 
only  lasted  six  months  and  ended  in  a  loss,  which  he  had  to 
sustain  alone  ;  but  Birotteau  did  not  lose  heart.  He  meant  to 
obtain  a  result  at  any  price,  if  it  were  only  to  escape  a  scold- 
ing from  his  wife ;  and,  indeed,  he  confessed  to  her  afterward 
that,  in  those  days  of  despair,  his  head  used  to  boil  like  a  pot 
3 


34  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

on  the  fire,  and  that  many  a  time,  but  for  his  religious  princi- 
ples, he  would  have  thrown  himself  into  the  Seine. 

One  day,  depressed  by  several  unsuccessful  experiments, 
he  was  sauntering  home  to  dinner  along  the  boulevards  (the 
lounger  in  Paris  is  a  man  in  despair  quite  as  often  as  a  genuine 
idler),  when  a  book  among  a  basketful  at  six  sous  a  piece 
caught  his  attention  ;  his  eyes  were  attracted  by  the  yellow, 
dusty  title-page.  It  ran,  "Abdeker,  or  the  Art  of  Preserving 
Beauty." 

Birotteau  took  up  the  work.  It  claimed  to  be  a  transla- 
tion from  the  Arabic,  but  in  reality  it  was  a  sort  of  romance 
written  by  a  physician  in  the  previous  century.  Cesar  hap- 
pened to  stumble  upon  a  passage  therein  which  treated  of  per- 
fumes, and,  with  his  back  against  a  tree  in  the  boulevard,  he 
turned  the  pages  over  till  he  reached  a  footnote,  wherein  the 
learned  author  discoursed  of  the  nature  of  the  dermis  and 
epidermis.  The  writer  showed  conclusively  that  such  and 
such  an  unguent  or  soap  often  produced  an  effect  exactly  op- 
posite to  that  intended,  and  the  ointment,  or  the  soap,  acted 
as  a  tonic  upon  a  skin  that  required  a  lenitive  treatment,  or 
vice  vers 5,. 

Birotteau  saw  a  fortune  in  the  book,  and  bought  it.  Yet, 
feeling  little  confidence  in  his  unaided  lights,  he  went  to  Vau- 
quelin,  the  celebrated  chemist,  and  in  all  simplicity  asked 
him  how  to  compose  a  double  cosmetic  which  should  produce 
the  required  effect  upon  the  human  epidermis  in  either  case. 
The  really  learned — men  so  truly  great  in  this  sense  that  they 
can  never  receive  in  their  lifetime  all  the  fame  that  should 
reward  vast  labors  like  theirs — are  almost  always  helpful  and 
kindly  to  the  poor  in  intellect.  So  it  was  with  Vauquelin. 
He  came  to  the  assistance  of  the  perfumer,  gave  him  a  formula 
for  a  paste  to  whiten  the  hands,  and  allowed  him  to  style  him- 
self its  inventor.  It  was  this  cosmetic  that  Birotteau  called 
the  Superfine  Pate  des  Sultanes.  The  more  thoroughly  to 
accomplish  his  purpose,  he  used  the  recipe  for  the  paste  for  a 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  35 

wash  for  the  complexion,  which  he  called  the  Carminative 
Toilet  Lotion. 

He  took  a  hint  from  the  Little  Sailor,  and  was  the  first 
among  perfumers  to  make  the  lavish  use  of  placards,  hand- 
bills, and  divers  kinds  of  advertisements,  which,  perhaps  not 
undeservedly,  are  called  quackery.  The  Pate  des  Sultanes 
and  the  Carminative  Toilet  Lotion  were  introduced  to  the 
polite  world  and  to  commerce  by  gorgeous  placards,  with  the 
words  Approved  by  the  Institute  at  the  head.  The  effect 
of  this  formula,  employed  thus  for  the  first  time,  was  magical. 
Not  France  only,  but  the  face  of  Europe  was  covered  with 
flaming  proclamations,  yellow,  scarlet,  and  blue,  which  in- 
formed the  world  that  the  sovereign  lord  of  the  Queen  of 
Roses  manufactured,  kept  in  stock,  and  supplied  everything 
in  his  line  of  business  at  moderate  charges. 

At  a  time  when  the  east  was  the  one  topic  of  conversation, 
in  a  country  where  every  man  has  a  natural  turn  for  the  part 
of  a  sultan,  and  every  woman  is  no  less  minded  to  become  a 
sultana,  the  idea  of  giving  to  any  cosmetic  such  a  name  as  the 
Pate  des  Sultanes  might  have  occurred  to  any  ordinary  man, 
it  needed  no  cleverness  to  foresee  its  fascination  ;  but  the 
public  always  judges  by  results,  and  Birotteau's  reputation 
for  business  ability  but  grew  the  more  when  he  indited  a  pros- 
pectus, and  the  very  absurdity  of  its  language  contributed  to 
its  success.  In  France  we  only  laugh  at  men  and  things  who 
are  talked  about,  and  those  who  fail  to  make  any  mark  are  not 
talked  about.  So  although  Birotteau's  stupidity  was  real  and 
not  feigned,  people  gave  him  credit  for  playing  the  fool  on 
purpose. 

A  copy  of  the  prospectus  has  been  procured,  not  without 
difficulty,  by  the  house  of  Popinot  &  Co.,  druggists  in  the 
Rue  des  Lombards.  In  a  more  elevated  connection  this 
curious  piece  of  rhetoric  would  be  styled  an  historical  docu- 
ment, and  valued  for  the  light  that  it  sheds  on  contemporary 
manners.     Here,  therefore,  it  is  given  : 


36  CESAR    BIROTTEAUi 

CESAR    BIROTTEAU'S 

SUPERFINE  PATE  DES  SULTANES 

AND 

CARMINATIVE  TOILET  LOTION. 

A    Marvelous    Discovery  ! 

Approved  by  the  Institute. 

"  For  some  time  past  a  preparation  for  the  hands  and  a  toilet  lotion 
more  efficacious  than  Eau-de-Cologne  have  been  generally  desired  by 
both  sexes  throughout  Europe.  After  devoting  long  nights  to  the  study 
of  the  dermis  and  epidermis  of  both  sexes — for  both  attach,  and  with 
reason,  the  greatest  importance  to  the  softness,  suppleness,  bloom,  and 
delicate  surface  of  the  skin — M.  Birotteau,  a  perfumer  of  high  standing 
and  well  known  in  the  capital  and  abroad,  has  invented  two  preparations, 
which  from  their  first  appearance  have  been  deservedly  called  '  marvel- 
ous '  by  people  of  the  highest  fashion  in  Paris.  Both  preparations  possess 
astonishing  properties,  and  act  upon  the  skin  without  bringing  about  pre- 
mature wrinkles,  the  inevitable  result  of  the  rash  use  of  the  drugs  hitherto 
compounded  by  ignorance  and  cupidity. 

"  These  inventions  are  based  upon  the  difference  of  temperaments, 
which  are  divided  into  two  great  classes,  are  indicated  by  the  difference 
of  color  in  the  pate  and  the  lotion;  the  rose-colored  preparations  being 
intended  for  the  dermis  and  epidermis  of  persons  of  lymphatic  constitu- 
tion, and  the  white  for  those  endowed  with   a  sanguine  temperament. 

"  The  pate  is  called  the  Pate  des  Sultanes,  because  the  specific  was 
in  the  first  instance  invented  for  the  Seraglio  by  an  Arab  physician.  It 
has  been  approved  by  the  Institute  on  the  report  of  our  illustrious  chemist 
Vauquelin,  and  the  lotion,  likewise  approved,  is  compounded  upon  the 
same  principles. 

"  The  Pate  des  Sultanes,  an  invaluable  preparation,  which  exhales  the 
sweetest  fragrance,  dissipates  the  most  obstinate  freckles,  whitens  the  skin 
in  the  most  stubborn  cases,  and  represses  the  perspiration  of  the  hand 
from  which  women  suffer  no  less  than  men. 

"The   Carminative   Toilet    Lotion  removes  the  slight  pimples 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  37 

which  sometimes  appear  inopportunely  on  ladies'  faces  and  contravene 
their  projects  for  the  ball ;  it  refreshes  and  revives  the  color  by  opening 
or  closing  the  pores  of  the  skin  in  accordance  with  the  exigencies  of  the 
temperament,  while  its  efficacy  in  arresting  the  ravages  of  time  is  so  well 
known  already  that  many  ladies,  out  of  gratitude,  call  it  the  Friend  of 
Beauty. 

"  Eau-de-Cologne  is  purely  and  simply  an  ordinary  perfume  without 
special  efficacy,  while  the  Superfine  Pate  des  Sultanes  and  the  Carmina- 
tive Toilet  Lotion  are  two  active  remedies,  powerful  agents,  perfectly 
harmless  in  their  operation  of  seconding  the  efforts  of  nature ;  their  per- 
fumes, essentially  balsamic  and  exhilarating,  admirably  refresh  the  animal 
spirits,  and  charm  and  revive  ideas.  Their  merits  are  as  marvelous  as 
their  simplicity  ;  in  short,  to  woman  they  offer  an  added  charm,  while  a 
means  of  attraction  is  put  within  the  reach  of  man. 

"  The  daily  use  of  the  Carminative  Toilet  Lotion  allays  the  smarting 
sensation  caused  by  shaving,  while  it  keeps  the  lips  red  and  smooth,  and 
prevents  chapping;  it  gradually  dissipates  freckles  by  natural  means; 
and,  finally,  it  restores  tone  to  the  complexion.  These  results  are  the  signs 
of  that  perfect  equilibrium  of  the  humors  of  the  body,  which  insures 
immunity  from  the  migraine  to  those  who  are  subject  to  that  distressing 
complaint.  In  short,  the  Carminative  Toilet  Lotion,  which  may  be  used 
in  all  the  operations  of  the  toilet,  is  a  preventive  of  cutaneous  affections, 
by  permitting  free  transpiration  through  the  tissues,  while  imparting  a  per- 
manent bloom  to  the  skin. 

"  All  communications  should  be  prepaid  and  addressed  to  M.  Cesar 
Birotteau  (late  Ragon),  Perfumer  toherlate  majesty  Queen  Marie-Antoin- 
ette, at  the  Queen  of  Roses,  Rue  Saint-Honor6,  near  the  Place  Vendome, 
Paris. 

"  The  price  of  the  Pate  is  three  Uv res  per  tablet,  and  of  the  Toilet  I  otion, 
six  livres  per  bottle. 

"To  prevent  fraudulent  imitations,  M.  Birotteau  warns  the  public  that 
the  wrapper  of  every  tablet  bears  his  signature,  and  that  his  name  is 
stamped  on  every  bottle  of  the  Toilet  Lotion." 

The  success  of  this  scheme  was  due,  as  a  matter  of  fact 
(though  Cesar  did  not  suspect  it),  to  Constance,  who  pro- 
posed that  they  should  send  sample  cases  of  the  Carminative 
Toilet  Lotion  and  the  Superfine  Pate  des  Sultanes  to  every 


38  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

perfumer  in  France  or  abroad,  offering,  at  the  same  time,  a 
discount  of  thirty  per  cent,  as  an  inducement  to  take  a  gross 
of  either  article  at  a  time? 

The  Pate  and  the  Lotion  were  really  better  than  similar 
cosmetics,  and  the  simple  were  attracted  by  that  distinction 
made  between  the  two  temperaments.  The  discount  was 
tempting  to  hundreds  of  perfumers  all  over  France,  and  each 
would  take  annually  three  hundred  gross  or  more  of  both 
preparations ;  and,  if  the  profits  on  each  article  were  small, 
the  demand  was  great  and  the  output  enormous.  Cesar  was 
able  to  buy  the  sheds  and  the  plot  of  land  in  the  Faubourg  du 
Temple.  He  built  a  large  factory  there,  and  had  the  Queen 
of  Roses  magnificently  decorated.  The  household  began  to 
feel  the  small  comforts  of  an  easier  existence,  and  the  wife 
quaked  less  than  heretofore. 

In  1810  Mme.  Cesar  predicted  a  rise  in  house  rents.  At 
her  instance  her  husband  took  the  lease  of  the  whole  house 
above  the  store,  and  they  removed  from  the  mezzanine  floor 
(where  they  had  begun  housekeeping  together)  to  the  second 
floor.  A  piece  of  luck  which  befell  them  about  that  time 
decided  Constance  to  shut  her  eyes  to  Birotteau's  follies  in 
the  matter  of  decorating  a  room  for  her.  The  perfumer  was 
made  a  judge  of  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce.  It  was  his  char- 
acter for  integrity  and  conscientiousness,  together  with  the 
esteem  in  which  he  was  held,  that  gained  this  dignity  for 
him  ;  thenceforward  he  must  be  considered  as  a  notable  among 
the  tradesmen  of  Paris. 

He  used  to  rise  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  read 
handbooks  on  jurisprudence  and  works  which  treated  of 
commercial  law.  With  his  instinct  for  fair  dealing,  his  up- 
rightness, his  readiness  to  take  trouble — all  qualities  essential 
for  the  appreciation  of  the  knotty  points  submitted  to  arbitra- 
tion— he  was  one  of  the  most  highly  esteemed  judges  in  the 
Tribunal.  His  faults  contributed  no  less  to  his  reputation. 
Cesar  was  so  conscious  of  his  inferiority  that  he  was  readv 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  39 

and  willing  to  take  his  colleagues'  opinion,  and  they  were 
flattered  by  the  attention  with  which  he  listened  to  them. 
Some  of  them  thought  a  good  deal  of  the  silent  approbation 
of  such  a  listener,  reputed  to  be  a  hard-headed  man;  others 
were  delighted  with  his  amiability  and  modesty,  and  extolled 
him  on  those  grounds.  Those  amenable  to  his  jurisdiction 
lauded  his  benevolence  and  conciliatory  spirit,  and  he  was 
often  called  in  to  act  as  arbitrator  in  disputes  wherein  his 
homely  sense  suggested  to  him  a  kind  of  Cadi's  justice. 

He  managed  to  invent  and  use  throughout  his  term  of  office 
a  style  of  his  own  ;  it  was  stuffed  with  platitudes,  interspersed 
with  trite  sayings,  and  pieces  of  reasoning  rounded  into 
phrases  which  came  out  without  effort,  and  sounded  like 
eloquence  in  the  ears  of  shallow  people.  In  this  way  he  com- 
mended himself  to  the  naturally  mediocre  majority,  con- 
demned to  penal  servitude  for  life  and  to  views  of  the  earth 
earthy. 

Cesar  lost  so  much  time  at  the  Tribunal  that  his  wife  put 
pressure  upon  him,  and  thenceforward  he  declined  the  costly 
honor. 

In  the  year  1813  this  household,  thanks  to  its  constant 
unity,  after  plodding  along  through  life  in  a  humdrum  fashion, 
entered  upon  an  era  of  prosperity  which  nothing  seemingly 
ought  to  check. 

M.  and  Mme.  Ragon  (their  predecessors),  Uncle  Pillerault, 
Roguin  the  notary,  the  Matifats  (druggists  in  the  Rue  des 
Lombards  who  supplied  the  Queen  of  Roses),  Joseph  Lebas 
(a  retail  draper,  a  leading  light  in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  suc- 
cessor to  Guillaume  at  the  Cat  and  Racket),  Judge  Popinot 
(Mme.  Ragon's  brother),  Chiffreville  (of  the  firm  of  Protez 
&  Chiffreville),  M.  Cochin  (a  clerk  of  the  Treasury,  and  a 
sleeping  partner  in  Matifat's  business),  his  wife,  Mme.  Cochin, 
and  the  Abbe  Loraux  (confessor  and  director  of  the  devout 
among  this  little  circle)  made  up,  with  one  or  two  others,  the 
number  of  their  acquaintance.     Cesar  Birotteau  might  be  a 


CO  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

Royalist,  but  public  opinion  at  that  time  was  in  his  favor ; 
and,  though  he  had  scarcely  a  hundred  thousand  francs  beside 
his  business,  was  looked  upon  as  a  very  wealthy  man.  His 
steady-going  ways,  his  punctuality,  his  habit  of  paying  ready 
money  for  everything,  of  never  discounting  bills,  while  he 
would  take  paper  to  oblige  a  customer  of  whom  he  was  sure- 
all  these  things,  together  with  his  readiness  to  oblige,  had 
brought  him  a  great  reputation.  And  not  only  so ;  he  had 
really  made  a  good  deal  of  money,  but  the  building  of  his 
factories  had  absorbed  most  of  it,  and  he  paid  nearly  twenty 
thousand  francs  a  year  in  rent.  The  education  of  their  only 
daughter,  whom  Constance  and  Cesar  both  idolized,  had  been 
a  heavy  expense.  Neither  the  husband  nor  the  wife  thought 
of  money  where  Cesarine's  pleasure  was  concerned,  and  they 
had  never  brought  themselves  to  part  with  her. 

Imagine  the  delight  of  the  poor  peasant-parvenu  when  he 
heard  his  charming  Cesarine  play  a  sonata  by  Steibelt  or  sing 
a  ballad  ;  when  he  saw  her  writing  French  correctly,  or  mak- 
ing sepia  drawings  of  landscape,  or  listened  while  she  read 
aloud  from  the  Racines,  father  and  son,  and  explained  the 
beauties  of  the  poetry.  What  happiness  it  was  for  him  to  live 
again  in  this  fair,  innocent  flower,  not  yet  plucked  from  the 
parent  stem  ;  this  angel,  over  whose  growing  graces  and  ear- 
liest development  they  had  watched  with  such  passionate  ten- 
derness ;  this  only  child,  incapable  of  despising  her  father  or 
of  laughing  at  his  want  of  education,  so  much  was  she  his 
little  daughter. 

When  Cesar  came  to  Paris  he  had  known  how  to  read, 
write,  and  cipher,  and  at  that  point  his  education  had  been 
arrested.  There  had  been  no  opportunity  in  his  hard-working 
life  of  acquiring  new  ideas  and  information  beyond  the  per- 
fumery trade.  He  had  spent  his  time  among  folk  to  whom 
science  and  literature  were  matters  of  indifference,  and  whose 
knowledge  was  of  a  limited  and  special  kind  ;  he  himself, 
having  no  time  to  spare  for  loftier  studies,  became  perforce  a 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  41 

practical  man.  He  adopted  (how  should  he  have  done  other- 
wise ?)  the  language,  errors,  and  opinions  of  the  Parisian 
tradesman  who  admires  Moliere,  Voltaire,  and  Rousseau  on 
hearsay,  and  buys  their  works,  but  never  opens  them  ;  who 
will  have  it  that  the  proper  way  to  pronounce  armoire  is 
ormoire :  or  means  gold  and  moire  means  silk,  and  women's 
dresses  used  almost  always  to  be  made  of  silk,  and  in  their 
cupboards  they  locked  up  silk  and  gold — therefore,  ormoire  is 
right  and  armoire  (closet)  is  an  innovation.  Talma,  Mile. 
Mars,  and  other  actors  and  actresses  were  millionaires  ten 
times  over,  and  did  not  live  like  ordinary  mortals  :  the  great 
tragedian  lived  on  raw  meat,  and  Mile.  Mars  would  have  a 
fricassee  of  pearls  now  and  then — an  idea  she  had  taken  from 
some  celebrated  Egyptian  actress.  As  to  the  Emperor,  his 
vest  pockets  were  lined  with  leather,  so  that  he  could  take  a 
handful  of  snuff  at  a  time;  he  used  to  ride  at  full  gallop  up 
the  staircase  of  the  orangery  at  Versailles.  Authors  and  artists 
ended  in  the  workhouse,  the  natural  close  to  their  eccentric 
careers  ;  they  were,  every  one  of  them,  atheists  into  the  bar- 
gain, so  that  you  had  to  be  very  careful  not  to  admit  anybody 
of  that  sort  into  your  house.  Joseph  Lebas  used  to  advert 
with  horror  to  the  story  of  his  sister-in-law  Augustine  who 
married  the  artist  Sommervieux.  Astronomers  lived  on  spiders. 
These  bright  examples  of  the  attitude  of  the  bourgeois  mind 
toward  philology,  the  drama,  politics,  and  science  will  throw 
light  upon  its  breadth  of  view  and  powers  of  comprehension. 

Let  a  poet  pass  along  the  Rue  des  Lombards,  and  some 
stray  sweet  scent  shall  set  him  dreaming  of  the  east ;  for  him, 
with  the  odor  of  the  Khuskus  grass,  would  come  a  vision  of 
Nautch  girls  in  an  eastern  bath.  The  brilliant  red  lac  would 
call  up  thoughts  of  Vedic  hymns,  of  alien  creeds  and  castes  ; 
and  at  a  chance  contact  with  an  ivory  tusk,  he  would  mount 
an  elephant  and  make  love,  like  the  king  of  Lahore,  in  a 
muslin-curtained  howdah. 

But  the  petty  tradesman  does  not  so  much  as  know  whence 


42  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

the  raw  materials  of  his  business  are  brought.  Of  natural 
history  or  of  chemistry,  Birotteau  the  perfumer,  for  instance, 
knew  nothing  whatever.  It  is  true  that  he  regarded  Vauquelin 
as  a  great  man,  but  Vauquelin  was  an  exception.  Cesar  him- 
self was  about  on  a  par  with  the  retired  grocer,  who  summed 
up  a  discussion  on  the  ways  of  growing  tea  by  announcing 
with  a  knowing  air  that  "  there  are  only  two  ways  of  obtain- 
ing tea — from  Havre  or  by  the  overland  route."  And  Bi- 
rotteau thought  that  aloes  and  opium  were  only  to  be  found  in 
the  Rue  des  Lombards.  People  told  you  that  attar  of  roses 
came  from  Constantinople,  but,  like  Eau-de-Cologne,  it  was 
made  in  Paris.  These  names  of  foreign  places  were  humbug; 
they  had  been  invented  to  amuse  the  French  nation,  who 
cannot  abide  anything  that  is  made  in  France.  A  French 
merchant  has  to  call  his  discovery  an  English  invention,  or 
people  will  not  buy  it ;  it  is  just  the  same  in  England,  the 
druggists  there  tell  you  that  things  come  from  France. 

Yet  Cesar  was  not  altogether  a  fool  or  a  dunce ;  an  honest 
and  kind  heart  shed  a  lustre  over  everything  that  he  did  and 
made  his  a  worthy  life,  and  a  kindly  deed  absolves  all  possible 
forms  of  ignorance.  His  unvarying  success  gave  him  assur- 
ance ;  and,  in  Paris,  assurance,  the  sign  of  power,  is  taken 
for  power  itself. 

Cesar's  wife,  who  had  learned  to  know  her  husband's  char- 
acter during  the  early  years  of  their  marriage,  led  a  life  of 
perpetual  terror ;  she  represented  sound  sense  and  foresight 
in  the  partnership;  she  was  doubt,  opposition,  and  fear; 
while  Cesar  represented  boldness,  ambition,  activity,  the 
element  of  chance  and  undreamed-of  good-luck.  In  spite  of 
appearances,  the  merchant  was  the  weaker  vessel,  and  it  was 
the  wife  who  really  had  the  patience  and  courage.  So  it  had 
come  to  pass  that  a  timid  mediocrity,  without  education, 
knowledge,  or  strength  of  character,  a  being  who  could  in  no- 
wise have  succeeded  in  the  world's  slipperiest  places,  was  taken 
for  a  remarkable  man,  a  man  of  spirit  and  resolution,  thanks 


CtSAR  BIROTTEAU.  43 

to  his  Instinctive  uprightness  and  sense  of  justice,  to  the  good- 
ness of  a  truly  Christian  soul,  and  love  for  the  one  woman 
who  had  been  his. 

The  public  only  sees  results.  Of  all  Cesar's  circle,  only 
Pillerault  and  Judge  Popinot  saw  beneath  the  surface;  none 
of  the  rest  could  pronounce  on  his  character.  Those  twenty 
or  thirty  friends,  moreover,  who  met  at  one  another's  houses, 
retailed  the  same  platitudes,  repeated  the  same  stale  common- 
places, and  each  one  among  them  regarded  himself  as  superior 
to  his  company.  There  was  a  rivalry  among  the  women  in 
dinners  and  dress  ;  each  one  summed  up  her  husband  in  some 
contemptuous  word. 

Mme.  Birotteau  alone  had  the  good  sense  to  show  respect 
and  deference  to  her  husband  in  public.  She  saw  in  him  the 
man  who,  in  spite  of  his  private  weaknesses,  had  made  the 
wealth  and  earned  the  esteem  which  she  shared  along  with  him  ; 
though  she  sometimes  privately  wondered  if  all  men  who 
were  spoken  of  as  superior  intellects  were  like  her  husband. 
This  attitude  of  hers  contributed  not  a  little  to  maintain  the 
respect  and  esteem  shown  by  others  to  the  merchant,  in  a 
country  where  wives  are  quick-witted  enough  to  belittle  their 
husbands  and  to  complain  of  them. 

The  first  days  of  the  year  1814,  so  fatal  to  Imperial  France, 
were  memorable  in  the  Birotteau  household  for  two  events, 
which  would  have  passed  almost  unnoticed  anywhere  else; 
but  they  were  of  a  kind  to  leave  a  deep  impression  on  simple 
souls  like  Cesar  and  his  wife,  who,  looking  back  upon  their 
past,  found  no  painful  memories. 

They  had  engaged  a  young  man  of  two-and-twenty,  Fer- 
dinand du  Tillet  by  name,  as  first  assistant.  The  lad  had 
come  to  them  from  another  house  in  the  perfumery  trade, 
where  they  had  declined  to  give  him  a  percentage  on  the 
profits.  He  was  thought  to  be  a  genius,  and  he  had  been  very 
anxious  to  go  to  the  Queen  of  Roses,  knowing  the  place,  and 
the  people,  and  their  ways.     Birotteau  had  engaged  him  at  a 


44  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

salary  of  a  thousand  francs,  meaning  that  du  Tillet  should  be 
his  successor.  This  Ferdinand  du  Tillet  was  destined  to  ex- 
ercise so  great  an  influence  over  the  family  fortunes  that  a  few 
words  must  be  said  about  him. 

He  had  begun  life  simply  on  his  Christian  name  of  Ferdi- 
nand. There  was  an  immense  advantage  in  anonymity,  he 
thought,  at  a  time  when  Napoleon  was  pressing  the  young  men 
of  every  family  into  the  army ;  but  if  he  had  no  name,  he  had 
been  born  somewhere,  and  owed  his  birth  to  some  cruel  or 
voluptuous  fancy.  Here,  in  brief,  are  the  few  facts  known  as 
to  his  name  and  designation. 

In  1793  a  poor  girl  of  Tillet,  a  little  hamlet  near  the  An- 
delys,  bore  a  child  one  night  in  the  cure's  garden  at  Tillet, 
tapped  on  the  shutters,  and  then  drowned  herself.  The  good 
man  received  the  child,  named  him  after  the  saint  of  that  day 
in  the  calendar,  and  reared  him  as  if  he  had  been  his  own  son. 
In  1804  the  cure  died,  and  the  little  property  that  he  left  was 
insufficient  to  complete  the  education  thus  begun.  Ferdinand, 
thrown  upon  Paris,  there  led  the  life  of  a  freebooter,  amid 
chances  that  might  bring  him  to  the  scaffold  or  to  fortune,  to 
the  bar,  the  army,  commerce,  or  private  life.  Ferdinand, 
compelled  to  live  like  a  very  Figaro,  first  became  a  commer- 
cial traveler,  then,  after  traveling  round  France  and  seeing 
life,  became  a  perfumer's  assistant,  with  a  fixed  determination 
to  make  his  way  at  all  costs.  In  181 3  he  considered  it  ex- 
pedient to  ascertain  his  age  and  to  acquire  a  status  as  a  citizen  ; 
he,  therefore,  petitioned  the  Tribunal  of  the  Andelys  to 
transfer  the  entry  of  his  baptism  from  the  church  records  to 
the  mayor's  register;  and,  further,  he  asked  that  they  should 
insert  the  surname  of  du  Tillet,  which  he  had  assumed,  on 
the  ground  of  his  exposure  at  birth  in  the  commune  of  that 
name. 

He  had  neither  father  nor  mother;  he  had  no  guardian  save 
the  procureur-imperial ;  he  was  alone  in  the  world,  and  owed 
no  account  of  himself  to  any  one  ;  society  was  to  him  a  harsh 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  45 

stepdame,  and  he  showed  no  mercy  in  his  dealings  with  so- 
ciety, knew  no  guide  but  his  own  interests,  found  all  means 
of  success  permissible.  The  Norman,  armed  with  these  dan- 
gerous capacities,  combined  with  his  desire  to  succeed  the 
crabbed  faults  for  which  the  natives  of  his  province  are,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  blamed.  Beneath  his  insinuating  manner  there 
was  a  contentious  spirit ;  he  was  a  most  formidable  antagonist 
— a  blustering  litigant,  disputing  another's  least  rights  auda- 
ciously, while  he  never  yielded  a  point  himself.  He  had  time 
on  his  side,  and  wearied  out  his  opponents  by  his  inflexible 
pertinacity.  His  principal  merits  were  those  of  the  Scapins 
of  old  comedy ;  he  possessed  their  fertility  of  resource,  their 
skill  in  sailing  near  the  wind,  their  itch  to  seize  on  what  seems 
good  to  have  and  hold.  Indeed,  he  meant  to  apply  to  his 
poverty  a  motto  which  the  Abbe  Terray  applied  in  statecraft ; 
he  would  make  a  clean  record  by  turning  honest  at  some 
time  later  on. 

He  was  endowed  with  strenuous  energy,  with  the  military 
intrepidity  which  demands  good  deeds  or  bad  indifferently  of 
everybody,  justifying  his  demand  by  the  theory  of  personal 
interest ;  he  was  bound  to  succeed  ;  he  had  too  great  a  scorn 
of  human  nature  ;  he  believed  too  firmly  that  all  men  have 
their  price  ;  he  was  too  little  troubled  by  scruples  as  to  the 
choice  of  means,  when  all  were  alike  permissible ;  his  eyes 
were  too  fixedly  set  upon  the  success  and  wealth  that  should 
purchase  absolution  for  a  system  of  morals  which  worked  thus 
not  to  be  successful. 

Such  a  man,  between  the  convict's  prison  on  the  one  hand 
and  millions  upon  the  other,  must  of  necessity  become  vindic 
tive,  domineering,  swift  in  his  decisions,  a  dissembling  Crom- 
well scheming  to  cut  off  the  head  of  probity.  A  light,  mock- 
ing wit  concealed  the  depth  of  his  character;  mere  clerk 
though  he  was,  his  ambition  knew  no  bounds  ;  he  had  com- 
prehended society  in  one  glance  of  hatred,  and  said  to  himself, 
"  You  are  in  my  power."     He  had  vowed  that  he  would  not 


46  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

marry  before  he  was  forty  years  old.     He  kept  his  word  with 
himself. 

As  to  Ferdinand's  outward  appearance,  he  was  a  slim,  well- 
shaped  young  fellow,  with  adaptable  manners  that  enabled 
him  at  need  to  take  any  tone  through  the  whole  gamut  of 
society.  At  first  sight  his  weasel  face  was  not  displeasing ; 
but,  after  more  observation,  you  detected  the  strange  expres- 
sions which  are  visible  on  the  surface  of  those  who  are  not  at 
peace  with  themselves,  or  who  hear  at  times  the  warning 
voice  of  conscience.  His  hard,  high  color  glowed  under  the 
soft  Norman  skin.  There  was  a  furtive  look  in  the  wall-eyes, 
lined  with  silver  leaf,  which  grew  terrible  when  they  were 
fixed  full  on  his  victim.  His  voice  was  husky,  as  if  he  had 
been  speaking  for  long.  The  thin  lips  were  not  unpleasing, 
but  the  sharply-pointed  nose  and  slightly-rounded  forehead 
revealed  a  defect  of  race.  Indeed,  the  coloring  of  his  hair, 
which  looked  as  if  it  had  been  dyed  black,  indicated  the 
social  half-breed,  who  had  his  cleverness  from  a  dissolute 
great  lord,  his  low  ideas  from  the  peasant  girl,  the  victim  of 
seduction  ;  who  owed  his  knowledge  to  an  incomplete  educa- 
tion ;  whose  vices  were  those  of  the  waif  and  stray. 

Birotteau  learned,  to  his  unbounded  amazement,  that  his 
assistant  went  out  very  elegantly  arrayed,  came  in  very  late, 
and  went  to  balls  at  bankers'  and  notaries'  houses.  These 
habits  found  no  favor  with  Cesar.  To  his  way  of  thinking 
an  assistant  should  study  the  ledgers  and  think  of  nothing 
but  the  business.  The  perfumer  had  no  patience  with  folly. 
He  spoke  gently  to  du  Tillet  about  wearing  such  fine  linen, 
about  visiting  cards,  which  bore  the  name  F.  du  Tillet — 
manners  and  customs  which,  according  to  his  commercial 
jurisprudence,  should  be  confined  to  the  fashionable  world. 

But  Ferdinand  had  established  himself  in  this  house  to  play 
Tartuffe  to  Birotteau's  Orgon  ;  he  paid  court  to  Mme.  Cesar, 
tried  to  seduce  her,  and,  gauging  his  employer  with  appalling 
quickness,  judged  him  as  his  wife  had  previously  judged.    Du 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  4$ 

Tillet  only  said  what  he  meant  to  say,  and  was  both  reserved 
and  discreet;  but  he  unveiled  opinions  of  mankind  and  views 
of  life  in  a  fashion  that  dismayed  a  timorous,  conscientious 
woman,  who  thought  it  a  sin  to  do  the  slightest  wrong  to  her 
neighbor.  In  spite  of  the  tact  which  Mine.  Birotteau  em- 
ployed, du  Tillet  felt  her  contempt  for  him ;  and  Constance, 
to  whom  Ferdinand  had  written  several  amorous  epistles,  soon 
noticed  a  change  in  the  manners  of  her  assistant.  He  began 
to  behave  presumptuously,  to  give  others  the  impression  that 
there  was  an  understanding  between  them.  Without  inform- 
ing her  husband  of  her  private  reasons,  she  recommended  him 
to  dismiss  the  man,  and  Birotteau  was  of  his  wife's  opinion 
on  this  head.  Du  Tillet's  dismissal  was  resolved  upon  ;  but 
one  evening,  on  the  Saturday  before  he  gave  notice,  Birotteau 
balanced  his  books,  as  he  was  wont  to  do  every  month,  and 
found  that  he  was  three  thousand  francs  short.  He  was  in 
terrible  consternation.  It  was  not  so  much  the  actual  loss 
that  affected  him  as  the  suspicion  that  hung  over  his  three 
assistants  and  the  servant,  the  errand  boy,  and  the  workmen. 
On  whom  was  he  to  lay  the  blame?  Mme.  Birotteau  was 
never  away  from  the  cash  desk.  The  book-keeper,  who 
lodged  in  the  house,  was  a  young  man  of  eighteen,  Popinot 
byname,  a  nephew  of  M.  Ragon,  and  honesty  itself.  Indeed, 
on  Popinot's  own  showing  the  money  was  missing,  for  the 
cash  did  not  agree  with  the  balance.  Husband  and  wife 
agreed  to  say  nothing,  and  to  watch  every  one  in  the  house. 

Monday  came,  and  their  friends  came  to  spend  the  evening. 
Every  family  in  this  set  entertained  in  turn.  While  they 
played  at  cards,  Roguin  the  notary  put  down  on  the  table 
one  old  louis-d'or  which  Mme.  Cesar  had  taken  some  days 
before  of  a  bride,  Mme.  d'Espart. 

"Have  you  been  robbing  the  poor-box?"  asked  the  per- 
fumer, laughing. 

Roguin  said  that  he  had  won  the  money  of  du  Tillet  at  a 
banker's  house  on  the  previous  evening,  and  du  Tillet  bore 


48  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

him  out  in  this  without  a  blush.  As  for  the  perfumer,  he 
turned  crimson.  When  the  visitors  had  gone,  and  Ferdinand 
was  about  to  go  to  bed,  Birotteau  called  him  down  into  the 
shop,  on  pretense  of  business  to  discuss. 

"  We  are  three  thousand  francs  short  in  the  cash,  du  Tillet," 
the  good  man  said,  "and  I  cannot  suspect  anybody.  The 
matter  of  the  old  louis-d'or  seems  to  be  too  much  against  you 
to  be  passed  over  entirely,  so  we  will  not  go  to  bed  till  we 
have  found  out  the  mistake,  for,  after  all,  it  can  be  nothing 
but  a  mistake.  Very  likely  you  took  the  louis  on  account  of 
your  salary." 

Du  Tillet  owned  to  having  taken  the  louis.  The  perfumer 
thereupon  opened  the  ledger  ;  the  assistant's  account  had  not 
yet  been  debited  with  the  sum. 

"  I  was  in  a  hurry.  I  ought  to  have  asked  Popinot  to  enter 
it,"  said  Ferdinand. 

"  Quite  true,"  said  Birotteau,  disconcerted  by  this  off-hand 
coolness.  The  Norman  had  taken  the  measure  of  the  good 
folk  among  whom  he  had  come  with  a  view  to  making  his 
fortune. 

The  perfumer  and  his  assistant  spent  the  night  in  checking 
the  books,  the  worthy  merchant  knowing  all  the  while  that  it 
was  trouble  thrown  away.  As  he  came  and  went  he  slipped 
three  bank-notes  of  a  thousand  francs  each  into  the  safe, 
pressing  them  between  the  side  of  the  drawer  and  the  groove 
in  the  safe  ;  then  he  pretended  to  be  tired  out,  seemed  to  be 
fast  asleep,  and  snored.  Du  Tillet  awakened  him  in  triumph, 
and  showed  exaggerated  delight  over  the  discovery  of  the 
mistake. 

The  next  morning  Birotteau  scolded  little  Popinot  and 
Mme.  Cesar  in  public,  and  waxed  wrathful  over  their  care- 
lessness. 

A  fortnight  later,  Ferdinand  du  Tillet  entered  a  stock- 
broker's office.  The  perfumery  trade  did  not  suit  him,  he 
said ;   he  wanted  to  study  banking.     At  the  same  time,  he 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  49 

spoke  of  Mme.  Cesar  in  a  way  that  gave  the  impression  that 
motives  of  jealousy  had  procured  his  dismissal. 

A  few  months  later  du  Tillet  came  to  see  his  late  employer, 
and  asked  him  to  be  his  surety- for  twenty  thousand  francs,  to 
complete  the  guarantees  required  in  a  matter  which  was  to 
put  him  in  the  way  of  making  his  fortune.  Seeing  Birotteau's 
surprise  at  this  piece  of  effrontery,  du  Tillet  scowled  and 
asked  the  perfumer  whether  he  had  no  confidence  in  him. 
Matifat  and  two  men  with  whom  Birotteau  did  business  were 
there  at  the  time ;  his  indignation  did  not  escape  them, 
though  he  controlled  his  anger  in  their  presence.  Perhaps 
du  Tillet  had  returned  to  honesty  ;  a  gambling  debt  or  some 
woman  in  distress  might  have  been  at  the  root  of  that  error 
of  his  ;  and  the  fact  that  an  honest  man  publicly  declined 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  him  might  launch  a  man,  still 
young,  and  perhaps  penitent,  on  a  career  of  crime  and  mis- 
fortune. The  angel  of  mercy  took  up  the  pen  and  set  his 
signature  on  du  Tibet's  papers,  saying  as  he  did  so  that  he 
was  heartily  glad  to  do  a  small  service  for  a  lad  who  had 
been  very  useful  to  him.  The  color  came  into  the  good 
man's  face  as  he  told  that  kindly  lie.  Du  Tillet  could  not 
meet  his  eyes,  and  doubtless  at  that  moment  vowed  an  eternal 
enmity,  the  truceless  hate  that  the  angels  of  darkness  bear  the 
angels  of  light. 

Du  Tillet  kept  his  balance  so  skillfully  upon  the  tight-rope 
of  speculation  that  he  was  always  fashionably  dressed,  and 
was  apparently  rich  long  before  he  was  rich  in  reality.  When 
he  set  up  a  cabriolet  he  never  put  it  down  again  ;  he  held 
his  own  in  the  lofty  spheres  where  pleasure  and  business  are 
mingled,  among  the  Turcarets  of  the  epoch  for  whom  the 
crush-room  of  the  opera  is  a  branch  of  the  Stock  Exchange. 

Thanks  to  Mme.  Roguin,  whom  he  had   met  among  the 

Birotteaus'  circle,  he  became  rapidly  known  in  high  financial 

regions.     Ferdinand  du  Tillet  had  attained   a  prosperity  in 

nowise  delusive ;  he  was  on  an  excellent  footing  with  the  firm 

4 


60  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

of  Nucingen,  to  whom  Roguin  had  introduced  him ;  and  he 
had  not  been  slow  to  secure  the  Keller  connection  and  to 
make  friends  among  the  upper  banking  world.  Nobody  knew 
where  the  young  fellow  found  the  vast  capital  which  he  could 
command,  but  they  set  down  his  luck  to  his  intelligence  and 
honesty. 

The  Restoration  made  a  personage  of  Cesar  Birotteau,  and, 
in  the  vortex  of  political  crises,  he  not  unnaturally  forgot 
these  two  cross-events  in  his  household.  The  tenacity  with 
which  he  had  held  to  his  opinions — for  though  since  his 
wound  it  had  been  a  strictly  passive  tenacity,  he  still  held  to 
his  principles  for  decency's  sake — had  brought  him  patronage 
in  high  quarters,-  precisely  because  he  had  asked  for  nothing. 
He  received  an  appointment  as  major  in  the  National  Guard, 
though  he  did  not  so  much  as  know  a  single  word  of  com- 
mand. 

In  1815  Napoleon,  inimical  as  ever  to  Birotteau,  ejected 
him  from  his  post.  During  the  Hundred  Days,  Birotteau  be- 
came the  bete  noire  (wild  boar;  i.e.,  butt)  of  the  Liberals  in 
his  quarter;  for  party  feeling  began  to  run  high  in  that  year 
among  the  commercial  class,  who  hitherto  had  been  unani- 
mous in  voting  for  peace  for  business  reasons. 

After  the  second  Restoration,  the  Royalist  government 
found  it  necessary  to  manipulate  the  municipal  body.  The 
prefect  wanted  to  transform  Birotteau  into  a  mayor,  but, 
thanks  to  his  wife,  the  perfumer  accepted  the  less  conspicuous 
position  of  deputy-maygr.  His  modesty  added  not  a  little 
to  his  reputation,  and  brought  him  the  friendship  of  the 
mayor,  M.  Flamet  de  la  Billardiere.  Birotteau,  who  had 
seen  him  in  the  Queen  of  Roses  in  the  days  when  Royalist 
plotters  used  to  meet  at  Ragon's  store,  suggested  his  name  to 
the  prefect  of  the  Seine,  who  consulted  the  perfumer  on  the 
choice.  M.  and  Mme.  Birotteau  were  never  forgotten  in 
the  mayor's  invitations,  and  Mme.  Birotteau  often  asked  for 
charitable  subscriptions  at  Saint-Roch  in  good  society. 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  51 

La  Billardiere  warmly  supported  Birotteau  when  it  was 
proposed  to  distribute  the  crosses  awarded  to  the  municipal 
body ;  when  names  were  being  weighed  he  laid  stress  upon 
Cesar's  wound  received  at  Saint-Roch,  on  his  attachment  to 
the  Bourbons,  and  on  the  respect  in  which  Birotteau  was 
held.  So  the  minister  who,  while  he  endeavored  to  undo  the 
work  of  Napoleon,  was  wishful  to  make  creatures  of  his  own, 
and,  to  secure  partisans  for  the  Bourbons  from  the  ranks  of 
commerce  and  among  men  of  art  and  science,  included  Bi- 
rotteau in  the  list  of  those  to  be  distinguished. 

This  favor,  together  with  the  glory  which  Cesar  already 
shed  around  him  in  his  arrondissement,  put  him  in  a  position 
that  was  bound  to  magnify  the  ideas  of  a  man  who  had  met 
hitherto  with  nothing  but  success  ;  and  when  the  mayor  told 
him  of  the  approaching  distinction,  it  was  the  final  argument 
which  urged  the  perfumer  into  the  speculation  which  he  had 
just  disclosed  to  his  wife;  for  it  opened  up  a  way  of  quitting 
the  perfumery  trade  and  of  rising  to  the  upper  ranks  of  the 
Parisian  bourgeoisie. 

Cesar  was  forty  years  old.  Hard  work  at  his  factory  had 
set  one  or  two  premature  wrinkles  in  his  face  and  slightly 
silvered  the  long,  bushy  hair,  on  which  the  constant  pressure 
of  his  hat  had  impressed  a  glossy  ring.  The  outlines  of  his 
hair  described  five  points  on  the  forehead,  which  told  a  story 
of  simplicity  of  life.  There  was  nothing  alarming  about  the 
bushy  eyebrows,  for  the  blue  eyes,  with  their  clear,  straight- 
forward expression,  were  in  keeping  with  the  honest  man's 
brow.  His  nose,  broken  at  his  birth  and  blunt  at  the  tip, 
gave  him  the  astonished  look  of  the  typical  Parisian  cockney. 
His  lips  were  very  thick,  his  chin  heavy  and  straight.  It  was 
a  high-colored  face  with  square  outlines,  and  a  peculiar  dispo- 
sition of  the  wrinkles — altogether  it  was  of  the  ingenuous, 
shrewd,  peasant  type;  and  his  evident  physical  strength,  his 
sturdy  limbs,  broad  shoulders,  and  big  feet,  all  denoted  the 
countryman  transported  to  Paris.     The  large  hands,  covered 


52  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

with  hair,  the  creases  in  the  plump  finger-joints,  and  broad, 
square-shaped  nails  at  the  tips,  would  alone  have  attested  his 
origin  if  there  had  not  been  signs  of  it  about  his  whole 
person. 

He  always  wore  the  bland  smile  with  which  a  storekeeper 
welcomes  a  customer ;  but  this  smile,  assumed  for  business 
purposes  in  his  case,  was  the  outward  and  visible  expression 
of  inward  content  and  reflected  the  serenity  of  a  kindly  soul. 
His  distrust  of  his  species  was  strictly  confined  to  the  busi- 
ness; he  parted  company  with  his  shrewdness  as  he  came  away 
from  the  Exchange  or  shut  his  ledger.  Suspicion  for  him  was 
one  of  the  exigencies  of  business,  like  his  printed  bill-heads. 

There  was  a  comical  mixture  of  assurance,  fatuity,  and  good- 
nature in  his  face,  which  gave  it  a  certain  character  of  its  own, 
and  redeemed  it,  to  some  extent,  from  the  vapid  uniformity 
of  Parisian  bourgeois  countenances.  But  for  that  expression 
of  artless  wonder  and  trustfulness,  people  would  have  stood 
too  much  in  awe  of  him ;  it  was  thus  that  he  paid  his  quota 
of  absurdity  that  put  him  on  a  footing  of  equality  with  his 
kind. 

It  was  a  habit  of  his  to  cross  his  hands  behind  him  while 
speaking ;  and,  when  he  meant  to  say  something  particularly 
civil  or  striking,  he  gradually  raised  himself  on  tiptoe  once  or 
twice,  and  came  down  heavily  upon  his  heels,  as  if  to  em- 
phasize his  remark.  Sometimes  in  the  height  of  a  discussion 
he  would  suddenly  swing  himself  round,  take  a  step  or  two  as 
if  in  search  of  objections,  and  then  turn  abruptly  upon  his 
opponent.  He  never  interrupted  anybody,  and  not  seldom 
fell  a  victim  to  his  finer  punctilious  observance  of  good  man- 
ners, for  others  did  not  scruple  to  take  the  words  out  of  his 
mouth,  and  when  the  worthy  man  came  away  he  had  been 
unable  to  put  in  a  word. 

In  his  wide  experience  of  business  he  had  acquired  habits 
which  others  sometimes  described  as  a  mania.  For  instance, 
if  a  bill  had  not  been  met,  he  would  put  it  in  the  hands  of  the 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  53 

process-server  and  gave  himself  no  further  trouble  about  it, 
save  to  receive  the  capital,  interest,  and  court  expenses.  The 
matter  might  drive  the  customer  into  bankruptcy,  and  then 
Cesar  went  no  further.  He  never  attended  a  meeting  of 
creditors ;  his  name  never  appeared  in  any  list ;  he  kept  his 
claims.  This  system,  together  with  an  implacable  contempt 
for  bankrupts,  had  been  handed  down  to  him  by  old  M. 
Ragon,  who,  after  a  long  commercial  experience,  had  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  meagre  and  uncertain  dividend 
paid  under  the  circumstances  was  a  very  poor  return  for  the 
time  wasted  in  law  proceedings,  and  held  that  he  could  spend 
his  time  to  better  purpose  than  in  running  about  after  excuses 
for  dishonesty. 

"  If  the  bankrupt  is  an  honest  man  and  makes  his  way  again, 
he  will  pay  you,"  M.  Ragon  was  wont  to  say.  "If  he  has 
nothing,  and  is  simply  unfortunate,  what  is  the  good  of  tor- 
menting him  ?  And  if  he  is  a  rogue,  you  will  get  nothing  in 
any  case.  If  you  have  a  name  for  being  hard  on  people,  they 
will  not  try  to  make  terms  with  you ;  and  so  long  as  they  can 
pay  at  all,  you  are  the  man  whom  they  will  pay." 

Cesar  kept  his  appointments  punctually;  he  would  wait  for 
ten  minutes,  and  nothing  would  induce  him  to  stay  any 
longer,  a  characteristic  which  was  a  cause  of  punctuality  in 
others  who  had  to  do  with  him. 

His  dress  was  in  keeping  with  his  appearance  and  habits. 
No  power  on  earth  would  have  induced  him  to  resign  the  white 
lawn  neck-cloths  with  drooping  ends,  embroidered  by  his  wife 
or  daughter.  His  white  drill  vests,  adorned  with  a  double  row 
of  buttons,  descended  low  upon  his  prominent  abdomen,  for 
Birotteau  was  inclined  to  corpulence.  He  wore  blue  breeches, 
black  silk  stockings,  and  walking-shoes  adorned  with  ribbon 
bows  that  were  apt  to  come  unfastened.  Out  of  doors  his 
too  ample  green  overcoat  and  broad-brimmed  hat  gave  him  a 
somewhat  Quakerly  appearance.  On  Sunday- evenings  he 
wore  a  coat  of  chestnut-brown  cloth,  with  long  tails  and  ample 


54  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

skirts,  and  black  silk  breeches  ;  the  corners  of  the  inevitable 
vest  were  turned  down  a  little  to  display  the  pleated  shirt- 
front  beneath,  and  there  were  gold  buckles  on  his  shoes. 
Until  the  year  1819  his  person  was  further  adorned  by  two 
parallel  lines  of  watch-chain,  but  he  only  wore  the  second 
when  in  full  dress. 

Such  was  Cesar  Birotteau — a  worthy  soul,  from  whom  the 
mysterious  powers  that  preside  at  the  making  of  man  had 
withheld  the  faculty  of  seeing  life  or  politics  as  a  whole,  and 
the  capacity  of  rising  above  the  social  level  of  the  lower 
middle  class ;  in  all  things  he  was  destined  to  follow  in  the 
ruts  of  the  old  road ;  he  had  caught  his  opinions  like  an  in- 
fection, and  he  put  them  in  practice  without  examining  into 
them.  But  if  he  was  blind,  he  was  a  good  man  ;  if  he  was 
not  very  clever,  he  was  deeply  religious,  and  his  heart  was 
pure.  In  that  heart  there  shone  but  one  love,  the  light  of 
his  life  and  its  motive-power ;  for  his  desire  to  rise  in  the 
world,  like  the  meagre  knowledge  that  he  had  learned  in  it, 
had  its  source  in  his  love  for  his  wife  and  daughter. 

As  for  Mme.  Cesar,  at  that  time,  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven, 
she  so  exactly  resembled  the  Venus  of  Milo  that,  when  the 
Due  de  Riviere  sent  the  beautiful  statue  to  France,  all  her 
acquaintance  recognized  the  likeness.  A  few  short  months, 
and  trouble  so  swiftly  spread  its  sallow  tinge  over  the  dazzling 
fairness  of  her  face,  so  ruthlessly  darkened  and  hollowed  the 
blue-veined  circles  in  which  the  beautiful  hazel  eyes  were  set, 
that  she  came  to  look  like  an  aged  Madonna  ;  for  in  the  wreck 
of  her  beauty  she  never  lost  her  sweet  ingenuousness,  though 
there  was  a  sad  expression  in  the  clear  eyes ;  and  it  was  im- 
possible not  to  see  in  her  a  still  beautiful  woman,  staid  in  her 
demeanor  and  full  of  dignity.  Moreover,  during  this  ball  of 
Cesar's  planning,  her  beauty  was  to  shine  forth  radiantly  and 
exquisitely  adorned  for  the  last  time  to  the  admiration  of 
beholders. 

Every  life  has  its  apogee  ;  there  is  a  time  in  every  existence 


CASAR  B1R0TTEAU.  55 

when  active  causes  bring  about  exactly  proportionate  results. 
This  high-noon  of  life,  when  the  vital  forces  are  evenly  bal- 
anced and  put  forth  in  all  the  glory  of  their  strength,  is  com- 
mon not  only  to  organic  life ;  you  will  find  it  even  in  the 
history  of  cities  and  nations  and  institutions  and  ideas,  in 
commerce,  and  in  every  kind  of  human  effort,  for,  like  noble 
families  and  dynasties,  these  too  have  their  birth  and  rise  and 
fall. 

How  comes  it  that  this  argument  of  waxing  and  waning  is 
applied  so  inexorably  to  everything  throughout  the  system  of 
things  ? — to  death  as  to  life ;  for  in  times  of  pestilence  death 
runs  his  course — abates,  returns  again,  lies  dormant.  Who 
knows  but  that  our  globe  itself  is  a  rocket  somewhat  longer 
lived  than  other  fireworks  ? 

History,  telling  over  and  over  again  the  reasons  of  the  rise 
and  fall  of  all  that  has  been  in  the  world  in  the  past,  might 
be  a  warning  to  man  that  there  is  a  moment  when  the  active 
play  of  all  his  faculties  must  cease ;  but  neither  conquerors, 
nor  actors,  nor  women,  nor  writers  heed  the  wholesome  ad- 
monition. Cesar  Birotteau,  who  should  have  looked  upon 
himself  as  having  reached  the  apogee  of  his  career,  mistook 
the  summit  for  the  starting-point.  He  did  not  know  the 
reason  of  the  downfalls  of  which  history  is  full ;  nay,  neither 
kings  nor  peoples  have  made  any  effort  to  engrave  in  imper- 
ishable characters  the  causes  of  the  catastrophes  of  which  the 
history  of  royal  and  of  commercial  houses  affords  such  con- 
spicuous examples.  Why  should  not  pyramids  be  reared  anew 
to  put  us  constantly  in  mind  of  the  immutable  law  which  should 
govern  the  affairs  of  nations  as  well  as  of  individuals :  When 
the  effect  produced  is  no  longer  in  direct  relation  with  nor  in 
exact  proportion  to  the  cause,  disorganization  sets  in  ?  And  yet 
— these  monuments  are  all  about  us — in  legends,  in  the  stones 
that  cry  out  to  us  of  a  past,  and  bear  perpetual  record  to  the 
freaks  of  a  stubborn  Fate  whose  hand  sweeps  away  our  illu- 
sions, and  makes  it  clear  to  us  that  the  greatest  events  resolve 

c 


56  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

themselves  at  last  into  an  Idea,  and  the  "  Tale  of  Troy  "  and 
the  "Story  of  Napoleon  "  are  poems  and  nothing  more. 

Would  that  this  story  might  be  the  Epic  of  the  Bourgeoisie ; 
there  are  dealings  of  fate  with  man  which  inspire  no  voice, 
because  they  lack  grandeur,  yet  are  even  for  that  very  reason 
immense  :  for  this  is  not  the  story  of  an  isolated  soul,  but  of 
a  whole  nation  of  sorrows. 

Cesar  as  he  dropped  off  to  sleep  feared  that  his  wife  might 
bring  forward  some  peremptory  objection  in  the  morning, 
and  laid  it  upon  himself  to  wake  betimes  and  settle  every- 
thing. As  soon  as  it  grew  light,  he  rose  noiselessly,  leaving 
his  wife  asleep,  dressed  quickly,  and  went  down  into  the  shop 
just  as  the  boy  was  taking  down  the  numbered  shutters. 
Birotteau,  finding  himself  in  solitary  possession,  stood  wait- 
ing in  the  doorway  for  the  assistants,  watching  critically  mean- 
while the  way  in  which  Raguet  the  errand  boy  discharged  his 
duties,  for  Birotteau  was  an  old  hand.  The  weather  was 
magnificent  in  spite  of  the  cold. 

"Popinot,  fetch  your  hat  and  your  walking  shoes,  and  tell 
Monsieur  Celestin  to  come  down ;  you  and  I  will  go  to  the 
Tuileries  and  have  a  little  talk  together,"  said  he,  when 
Anselme  came. 

Popinot,  that  admirable  foil  to  du  Tillet,  whom  one  of 
those  happy  chances  which  induce  a  belief  in  a  protecting 
providence  had  established  in  Cesar's  houshold,  will  play  so 
great  a  part  in  this  story  that  it  is  necessary  to  give  a  sketch 
of  him  here. 

Mme.  Ragon's  maiden  name  was  Popinot.  She  had  two 
brothers.  One  of  them,  the  youngest  of  the  family,  was  at 
the  present  time  a  judge  in  the  Tribunal  of  First  Instance  of 
the  Seine.  The  elder  had  gone  into  the  wool-trade,  had  lost 
his  patrimony,  and  died,  leaving  his  only  son  to  the  Ragons 
and  his  brother  the  judge,  who  had  no  children.  The  child's 
mother  had  died  at  his  birth. 

Mme.  Ragon  had  found  this  situation  for  her  nephew,  and 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  57 

hoped  to  see  him  succeed  to  Birotteau.  Anselme  Popinot 
(for  that  was  his  name)  was  short  and  club-footed,  a  dispensa- 
tion common  to  Byron,  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  Talleyrand, 
lest  others  thus  afflicted  should  be  too  much  discouraged.  He 
had  the  brilliant  complexion  covered  with  freckles  which 
usually  distinguishes  red-haired  people  ;  but  a  clear  forehead, 
eyes  like  agates  streaked  with  gray,  a  pretty  mouth*  a  pale 
face,  the  charm  of  youthful  diffidence,  and  a  want  of  confi- 
dence in  himself,  due  to  his  physical  deformity,  aroused  a 
kindly  feeling  toward  him  in  others.  We  love  the  weak,  and 
people  felt  interested  in  Popinot. 

Little  Popinot,  as  everybody  called  him,  took  after  his 
family.  They  were  people  essentially  religious,  whose  virtues 
were  informed  by  intelligence,  whose  quiet  lives  were  full  of 
good  deeds.  So  the  child,  brought  up  by  his  uncle  the  judge, 
united  all  the  qualities  pleasing  in  youth  ;  he  was  a  good  and 
affectionate  boy,  a  little  bashful,  but  full  of  enthusiasm  ; 
docile  as  a  lamb,  but  hard-working,  faithful,  and  steady; 
endowed  with  all  the  virtues  of  a  Christian  in  the  early  days 
of  the  church. 

When  Popinot  heard  of  the  proposed  walk  to  the  Tuileries, 
the  most  unlooked-for  remark  that  his  awe-inspiring  employer 
could  have  made  at  that  time  of  day,  his  thoughts  went  to  his 
own  settlement  in  life,  and  thence  all  at  once  to  Cesarine,  the 
real  queen  of  roses,  the  living  sign  of  the  house.  He  had 
fallen  in  love  on  his  very  first  day  in  the  shop,  two  months 
before  du  Tillet's  departure.  He  was  obliged  to  stop  more 
than  once  on  his  way  upstairs,  his  heart  so  swelled  and  his 
pulses  beat  so  hard. 

In  another  moment  he  came  down,  followed  by  Celestin, 
the  first  assistant.  Then  Anselme  and  his  employer  set  out 
without  a  word  for  the  Tuileries. 

Anselme  Popinot  was  just  twenty-one  years  of  age  ;  Birotteau 
had  married  at  one-and-twenty,  so  Anselme  saw  no  hindrance 
to  his  marriage  with  Cesarine  on  that  score.    It  was  her  beauty 


58  C&SAR  BJROTTEAU. 

and  her  father's  wealth  that  set  enormous  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  such  ambitious  wishes  as  his,  but  love  grows  with  every 
up-leaping  of  hope ;  the  wilder  the  hopes,  the  more  he  clung 
to  them,  and  his  longings  grew  the  stronger  for  the  distance 
between  him  and  his  love.  Happy  boy,  who  in  a  time  when 
all  and  sundry  are  brought  down  to  the  same  level,  when 
every  head  is  crowned  with  a  precisely  similar  hat,  can  still 
contrive  to  create  a  distance  between  a  perfumer's  daughter 
and  himself — the  scion  of  an  old  Parisian  family  !  And  he 
was  happy,  in  spite  of  his  doubts  and  fears :  every  day  of  his 
life  he  sat  next  to  Cesarine  at  dinner  ;  he  set  about  his  busi- 
ness with  a  zeal  and  enthusiasm  that  left  no  element  of 
drudgery  in  his  work ;  he  did  everything  in  the  name  of 
Cesarine,  and  never  wearied.  At  one-and-twenty  devotion  is 
food  sufficient  for  love. 

"  He  will  be  a  merchant  some  of  these  days;  he  will  get 
on,"  Cesar  would  say,  speaking  of  Anselme  to  Mme.  Ragon, 
and  he  would  praise  Anselme's  activity  in  the  filling-out  de- 
partment, extolling  his  quickness  at  comprehending  the  mys- 
teries of  the  craft,  relating  how  that,  when  goods  were  to  be 
sent  off  in  a  hurry,  Anselme  would  roll  up  his  sleeves  and  work 
bare-armed  at  packing  the  cases  and  nailing  down  the  lids, 
and  the  lame  lad  would  do  more  than  all  the  rest  of  them  put 
together. 

There  was  another  serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  or- 
phan's success.  It  was  a  well-known  and  recognized  fact  that 
Alexandre  Crottat,  Roguin's  head  clerk,  the  son  of  a  rich 
farmer  of  la  Brie,  hoped  to  marry  Cesarine ;  and  there  were 
other  difficulties  yet  more  formidable.  In  the  depths  of 
Popinot's  heart  there  lay  buried  sad  secrets  which  set  a  yet 
wider  gulf  between  him  and  Cesarine.  The  Ragons,  on  whom 
he  might  have  counted,  were  in  difficulties;  the  orphan  boy 
was  happy  to  take  them  his  scanty  salary  to  help  them  to  eke  out 
a  living.  But,  in  spite  of  all  these  things,  he  hoped  to  suc- 
ceed 1    More  than  once  he  had  caught  a  glance  from  Cesarine, 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  59 

and  beneath  her  apparent  pride  he  had  dared  to  read  a  secret 
thought  full  of  tender  hopes  in  the  depths  of  her  blue  eyes. 
So  he  worked  on,  set  in  a  ferment  by  that  gleam  of  hope, 
tremulous  and  mute,  like  all  young  men  in  a  like  case  when 
life  is  breaking  into  blossom. 

"Popinot,"  the  good  man  began,  "is  your  aunt  quite 
well?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"  Somehow  she  has  seemed  to  me  to  have  an  anxious  look  for 
some  time  past ;  can  something  have  gone  askew  with  them  ? 
Look  here,  my  boy,  you  must  not  make  a  stranger  of  me,  that 
am  almost  like  one  of  the  family,  for  I  have  known  your  Uncle 
Ragon  these  five-and-twenty  years.  When  I  first  came  to 
him  I  was  fresh  from  the  country  and  wore  a  pair  of  hob- 
nailed boots.  They  call  the  place  the  Treasury  Farm,  but  all 
I  brought  away  with  me  was  one  gold  louis  which  my  god- 
mother gave  me,  Madame  the  late  Marquise  d'Uxelles,  who 
was  related  to  le  Due  and  la  Duchesse  de  Lenoncourt,  who 
are  among  our  patrons.  So  I  always  say  a  prayer  every  Sun- 
day for  her  and  all  the  family ;  and  her  niece,  Madame  de 
Mortsauf,  in  Touraine,  has  all  her  perfumery  from  us.  Cus- 
tomers are  always  coming  to  me  through  them.  There  is 
Monsieur  de  Vandenesse,  for  example,  who  spends  twelve 
hundred  francs  with  us  every  year.  One  ought  to  be  grateful 
from  prudence,  if  one  is  not  grateful  by  nature  ;  but  I  am  a 
well-wisher  to  you,  without  an  after-thought  and  for  your  own 
sake." 

"Ah,  sir,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  say  so,  you  had  a  level 
head." 

"  No,  my  boy,  no  ;  that  won't  do  everything.  I  don't  say 
that  my  headpiece  isn't  as  good  as  another's,  but  I  stuck  to 
honesty  through  thick  and  thin  ;  I  was  steady,  and  I  never 
loved  any  one  but  my  wife.  Love  is  a  fine  vehicle,  a  neat 
expression  of  Monsieur  de  Villele's  yesterday  at  the  Tribune." 

"  Love  !"  cried  Popinot.      "Oh!  sir,  do  you ?" 


60  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"Stop  a  bit,  stop  a  bit!  There  is  old  Roguin  coming 
along  the  further  side  of  the  Place  Louis  XV.  at  eight  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  What  can  the  old  boy  be  about?"  said 
Cesar  to  himself,  and  he  forgot  Anselme  Popinot  and  the 
hazelnut  oil. 

His  wife's  theories  came  up  in  his  memory,  and,  instead  of 
turning  into  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries,  he  walked  on  to  meet 
the  notary.  Anselme  followed  at  a  distance,  quite  at  a  loss 
to  explain  the  sudden  interest  which  Birotteau  appeared  to 
take  in  a  matter  so  unimportant ;  but  very  happy  in  the  en- 
couragement which  he  derived  from  his  employer's  little 
speech  about  hobnailed  boots  and  louis-d'or,  and  love. 

Roguin,  a  tall,  burly  man,  with  a  pimpled  face,  an  almost 
bald  forehead,  and  black  hair,  had  not  formerly  been  lacking 
in  comeliness ;  and  he  had  been  young  and  ambitious  once, 
too,  and  from  a  mere  clerk  had  come  to  be  a  notary ;  but  now 
a  keen  observer  would  have  read  in  his  face  the  exhaustion 
and  fatigue  of  a  jaded  seeker  after  pleasure.  When  a  man 
plunges  into  the  mire  of  excess,  his  face  hardly  escapes  with- 
out a  splash,  and  the  lines  engraved  on  Roguin's  countenance 
and  its  florid  color  were  alike  ignoble.  Instead  of  the  pure 
glow  which  suffuses  the  tissues  of  men  of  temperate  life  and 
imparts  a  bloom  of  health,  there  was  visible  in  Roguin  the 
tainted  blood  inflamed  by  a  strain  against  which  the  body 
rebelled.  His  nose  was  meanly  turned  up  at  the  end,  as  is 
apt  to  be  the  case  with  those  in  whom  humors  taking  this 
channel  induce  an  internal  affection,  which  a  virtuous  Queen 
of  France  innocently  believed  to  be  a  misfortune  common  to 
the  species,  never  having  approached  any  man  but  the  King 
sufficiently  close  to  discover  her  mistake.  Roguin's  efforts 
to  disguise  his  infirmity  by  taking  quantities  of  Spanish  snuff 
served  rather  to  aggravate  the  troublesome  symptoms,  which 
had  been  the  principal  cause  of  his  misfortunes. 

Is  it  not  carrying  flattery  of  society  somewhat  too  far  to 
paint  individuals  always  in  false  colors,  to  conceal  in  certain 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  61 

cases  the  real  causes  of  their  vicissitudes,  so  often  brought 
about  by  disease?  Physical  ills,  in  their  moral  aspects  and 
the  influences  that  they  bring  to  bear  on  the  mechanism  of 
life,  have  perhaps  been  too  much  neglected  hitherto  by  the 
historian  of  manners.  Mme.  Cesar  had  rightly  guessed  the 
secret  of  Roguin's  married  life. 

His  wife,  a  charming  girl,  the  only  daughter  of  Chevrel, 
the  banker,  felt  an  unconquerable  repugnance  for  the  poor 
notary,  which  dated  from  the  night  of  her  marriage,  and  had 
been  determined  to  demand  an  immediate  divorce.  But 
Roguin,  too  happy  to  have  a  wife  who  brought  him  five  hun- 
dred thousand  francs,  to  say  nothing  of  her  expectations,  had 
implored  her  not  to  enter  her  plea,  leaving  her  her  liberty, 
and  accepting  all  the  consequences  of  such  a  compact.  Mme. 
Roguin,  mistress  of  the  situation,  treated  her  husband  as  a 
courtesan  treats  an  elderly  adorer.  Roguin  soon  found  his 
wife  too  dear,  and,  like  many  another  Parisian,  had  a  second 
establishment  in  the  town.  At  first  the  expenditure  did  not 
exceed  a  moderate  limit. 

For  a  while  Roguin  found,  at  no  great  outlay,  grisettes  who 
were  too  glad  of  his  protection  ;  but  at  the  end  of  three  years 
he  fell  a  prey  to  a  violent  sexagenarian  passion  for  one  of  the 
most  magnificent  creatures  of  the  time,  known  as  the  Beau- 
tiful Dutchwoman  in  the  calendars  of  the  demi-monde,  for  she 
shortly  afterward  fell  back  into  that  gulf,  which  her  death 
made  illustrious.  One  of  Roguin's  clients  had  formerly 
brought  her  to  Paris  from  Bruges;  and  when,  in  1815,  politi- 
cal considerations  forced  him  to  fly  he  made  her  over  to  the 
notary.  Roguin  had  taken  a  little  house  in  the  Champs- 
Elysees  for  his  enchantress ;  he  had  furnished  it  handsomely, 
and  had  allowed  himself  to  be  led  by  her,  until  he  had  squan- 
dered away  his  fortune  to  satisfy  her  extravagant  whims. 

The  gloomy  expression,  which  vanished  from  Roguin's 
countenance  at  the  sight  of  his  client,  was  connected  with 
mysterious  events,  wherein  laid  the  secret  of  du  Tillet's  rapid 


62  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

success.  While  du  Tillet  was  still  under  Birotteau's  roof,  on 
the  first  Sunday  which  gave  him  an  opportunity  of  observing 
how  M.  and  Mme.  Roguin  were  situated  with  regard  to  each 
other,  his  plans  had  undergone  a  change.  His  designs  upon 
Mme.  Cesar  had  been  subordinated  to  another  purpose ;  he  had 
meant  to  compel  an  offer  of  Cesarine's  hand  as  compensation 
for  repulsed  advances ;  but  it  cost  him  the  less  to  give  up  this 
marriage  since  he  had  discovered  that  Cesar  was  not  rich,  as 
he  had  believed.  Then  du  Tillet  played  the  spy  on  the 
notary,  insinuated  himself  into  his  confidence,  obtained  an 
introduction  to  the  Beautiful  Dutchwoman,  ascertained  the 
terms  on  which  she  stood  with  Roguin,  and  learned  that 
she  was  threatening  to  dismiss  her  adorer  if  he  curtailed  her 
extravagance.  The  Beautiful  Dutchwoman  was  one  of  those 
scatterbrained  creatures  who  take  money  without  disturbing 
themselves  as  to  how  it  was  made  or  how  they  come  by  it ; 
women  who  would  give  a  banquet  with  a  parricide's  dollars. 
She  took  no  thought  for  the  morrow  and  was  careless  of  yes- 
terday. The  future  for  her  meant  after  dinner,  and  eternity 
lay  between  the  present  moment  and  the  end  of  the  month, 
even  when  she  had  bills  to  fall  due.  Du  Tillet  was  delighted 
to  find  a  first  lever  to  his  hand,  and  began  his  campaign  by 
obtaining  a  reduction  from  the  Beautiful  Dutchwoman,  who 
agreed  to  solace  Roguin's  existence  for  thirty  thousand  francs 
instead  of  fifty  thousand,  a  kind  of  service  which  sexagenarian 
passion  rarely  forgets. 

At  length,  one  night  after  deep  potations,  Roguin  opened 
out  his  financial  position  to  du  Tillet  in  an  after-supper  confi- 
dence. His  real  estate  was  mortgaged  to  its  full  value  under 
his  wife's  marriage  settlement,  and  in  his  infatuation  he  had 
appropriated  moneys  deposited  with  him  by  his  clients ;  more 
than  half  the  value  of  his  practice  had  been  embezzled  in  this 
way.  When  he  had  run  through  the  rest,  the  unfortunate 
Roguin  would  blow  his  brains  out,  for  he  thought  he  should 
diminish  the  scandal  of  his  failure  by  exciting  the  pity  of 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  63 

the  public.  Du  Tillet,  listening,  beheld  success,  rapid  and 
assured,  gleaming  like  a  flash  of  lightning  through  the  ob- 
scurity of  drunkenness.  He  reassured  Roguin,  and  repaid 
his  confidence  by  persuading  him  to  fire  his  pistols  into  the 
air. 

"When  a  man  of  your  calibre  takes  such  risks  upon  him- 
self," said  he,  "  he  ought  not  to  flounder  about  like  a  fool; 
he  should  set  to  work  boldly." 

Du  Tillet  counseled  Roguin  to  help  himself  to  a  large  sum 
of  money,  and  to  intrust  it  to  him  (du  Tillet)  to  speculate 
boldly  with  it  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  or  in  some  other  en- 
terprise among  the  hundreds  that  were  being  started  at  that 
speculative  epoch.  If  the  stroke  was  successful,  the  two  of 
them  should  found  a  bank,  speculate  with  the  deposits,  and 
with  the  profits  the  notary  should  satisfy  his  cravings.  If  the 
luck  went  against  them,  Roguin  should  go  abroad,  instead  of 
killing  himself,  for  his  devoted  du  Tillet  would  be  faithful  to 
the  last  penny.  It  was  a  rope  flung  out  to  a  drowning  man, 
and  Roguin  did  not  see  that  the  perfumer's  salesman  was 
fastening  it  around  his  neck. 

Du  Tillet,  master  of  Roguin's  secret,  used  it  to  establish 
his  power  over  the  wife,  the  husband,  and  the  mistress.  Mme. 
Roguin,  to  whom  he  gave  warning  of  a  disaster,  which  she 
was  far  from  suspecting,  accepted  du  Tillet's  assiduities,  and 
then  it  was  that  the  latter  left  the  perfumer's  shop,  feeling 
that  his  future  was  secure.  It  was  not  difficult  to  persuade 
the  mistress  to  risk  a  sum  of  money  that  in  case  of  need  she 
might  not  be  obliged  to  go  on  the  street.  The  wife  looked 
into  her  affairs,  and  accumulated  a  small  amount  of  capital, 
which  she  handed  over  to  the  man  in  whom  her  husband 
placed  confidence,  for  at  the  outset  the  notary  put  a  hundred 
thousand  francs  into  the  hands  of  his  accomplice.  Brought 
in  this  way  into  close  contact  with  Mme.  Roguin,  du  Tillet 
contrived  to  transform  interest  into  affection  and  to  inspire  a 
violent  passion  in  that  handsome  woman.     In  his  speculations 


64  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

on  the  Stock  Exchange  he  naturally  shared  in  the  profits  of 
his  three  associates,  but  this  was  not  enough  for  him ;  he  had 
the  audacity  to  come  to  an  understanding  with  an  opponent, 
who  refunded  to  him  the  amount  of  fictitious  losses,  for  he 
played  for  his  own  hand  as  well  as  for  his  clients. 

As  soon  as  he  had  fifty  thousand  francs,  he  was  sure  of 
making  a  large  fortune.  He  watched  with  the  eagle's  eye, 
that  was  one  of  his  characteristics,  over  the  phases  of  political 
life  in  France  ;  he  speculated  for  a  fall  in  the  funds  during 
the  campaign  of  France,  and  for  a  rise  when  the  Bourbons 
came  back. 

Two  months  after  the  return  of  Louis  XVIII. ,  Mme.  Ro- 
guin  possessed  two  hundred  thousand  francs  and  du  Tillet  a 
hundred  thousand  crowns.  In  the  notary's  eyes  this  young 
man  was  an  angel ;  he  had  restored  order  in  his  affairs.  But 
the  Beautiful  Dutchwoman  fell  a  victim  to  a  wasting  com- 
plaint which  nothing  could  cure,  a  virulent  cancer  called 
Maxime  de  Trailles,  one  of  the  late  Emperor's  pages.  Du 
Tillet  discovered  the  woman's  real  name  from  her  signature 
to  a  document.  It  was  Sarah  Gobseck.  Then  he  remem- 
bered that  he  had  heard  of  a  money-lender  of  the  name  of 
Gobseck  ;  and,  struck  by  the  coincidence,  paid  a  visit  to  that 
aged  discounter  of  bills  and  providence  of  young  men  with 
prospects,  to  find  out  how  this  female  relative's  credit  stood 
with  him.  The  bill-broking  Brutus  proved  inexorable  where 
his  grandniece  was  concerned,  but  du  Tillet  himself  managed 
to  find  favor  in  his  eyes  by  posing  as  Sarah's  banker  with 
capital  to  invest.  The  Norman  and  the  money-lender  found 
each  other  congenial. 

Gobseck  wanted  a  clever  young  fellow  who  could  look  after 
a  bit  of  business  abroad  for  him  just  then.  The  return  of  the 
Bourbons  had  taken  a  State  auditor  by  surprise.  To  this 
financier,  wishful  to  stand  well  at  Court,  it  had  occurred  that 
he  might  buy  up  the  debts  contracted  by  the  Princes  in  Ger- 
many during  the  emigration.     He  offered  the  profits  of  the 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  65 

affair,  which  for  him  was  purely  a  matter  of  policy,  to  any 
one  who  would  advance  the  necessary  money.  Old  Gobseck 
had  no  mind  to  disburse  moneys  over  and  above  the  market 
value  of  the  debts,  into  which  a  shrewd  representative  must 
first  examine.  Money-lenders  trust  nobody ;  they  must  always 
have  a  guarantee  ;  the  occasion  is  omnipotent  with  them  ; 
they  are  ice  when  they  have  no  need  of  a  man,  affable  and 
obliging  when  he  is  likely  to  be  useful.  Du  Tillet  knew  the 
immense  part  played,  below  the  surface,  in  the  Paris  money 
market  by  Werbrust  and  Gigonnet,  discount  brokers  of  the 
Rue  Saint-Denis  and  Rue  Saint-Martin,  and  by  Palma,  a 
banker  in  the  Faubourg  Poissonniere,  who  was  almost  always 
associated  with  Gobseck.  He  therefore  offered  to  pay  down 
caution  money,  requiring  on  his  own  side  a  share  in  the  profits 
of  the  transaction,  and  asking  that  these  gentlemen  should 
employ  in  the  money-lending  business  the  capital  which  he 
should  deposit  with  them.  In  this  way  he  secured  supporters. 
Then  he  accompanied  M.  Clement  Chardin  des  Lupeaulx  on 
a  trip  to  Germany  during  the  Hundred  Days,  and  came  back 
with  the  Second  Restoration,  with  some  added  knowledge 
that  should  lead  to  success  rather  than  with  actual  wealth. 
He  had  had  an  initiation  into  the  secrets  of  one  of  the  clever- 
est schemers  in  Paris  ;  he  had  won  the  good-will  of  the  man 
whom  he  had  been  set  to  watch  ;  a  dexterous  juggler  had  laid 
bare  for  him  the  springs  of  political  intrigue  and  the  rules  of 
the  game. 

Du  Tillet's  intelligence  was  of  the  order  which  understands 
at  half  a  word ;  this  journey  formed  him.  On  his  return  he 
found  Mme.  Roguin  still  faithful ;  but  the  poor  notary  was 
expecting  Ferdinand  with  quite  as  much  impatience  as  his 
wife.     The  Beautiful  Dutchwoman  had  ruined  him  again  ! 

Du  Tillet,  questioning  the  Beautiful  Dutchwoman,  could 
not  elicit  from  her  an  account  that  represented  all  the  money 
which  she  had  squandered.  And  then  it  was  that  he  dis- 
covered the  secret  so  carefully  kept  from  him — Sarah  Gob- 
5 


66  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

seck's  infatuation  for  Maxime  de  Trailles,  known  at  the  very 
outset  of  his  career  of  vice  and  debauchery  for  a  political 
hanger-on  of  a  kind  indispensable  to  all  good  government, 
and  for  an  insatiable  gambler.  After  this  discovery  du  Tillet 
understood  old  Gobseck's  indifference  to  his  grandniece. 

At  this  critical  juncture  du  Tillet  the  banker  (for  by  this 
time  he  was  a  banker)  strongly  recommended  Roguin  to  put 
by  something  for  a  rainy  day  ;  to  engage  some  of  his  richest 
clients  in  a  business  speculation,  and  then  to  keep  back  con- 
siderable sums  out  of  the  money  paid  over  to  him,  in  case  he 
should  be  compelled  to  become  a  bankrupt  in  the  course  of  a 
second  career  of  speculation.  After  various  rises  and  falls  in 
the  price  of  stocks,  which  brought  luck  only  to  du  Tillet  and 
Mme.  Roguin,  the  notary's  hour  struck.  He  was  insolvent, 
and  thereupon,  in  his  extremity,  his  closest  friend  exploited 
him,  and  du  Tillet  discovered  that  speculation  in  building 
land  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Madeleine.  Naturally  one 
hundred  thousand  francs  which  Birotteau  had  deposited  with 
Roguin  until  an  investment  should  be  found  for  them  were 
paid  over  to  du  Tillet,  who,  bent  upon  compassing  the  per- 
fumer's ruin,  made  Roguin  understand  that  he  ran  less  risk  by 
ensnaring  his  own  intimate  friends  in  his  toils. 

"A  friend,"  said  du  Tillet,  "will  not  go  all  lengths  even 
in  anger." 

There  are  not  many  people  at  this  present  day  who  know 
how  little  land  was  worth  per  foot  in  the  district  of  the  Mad- 
eleine at  this  time ;  but  the  building  lots  must  necessarily 
shortly  be  sold  for  more  than  their  momentary  depreciation, 
caused  by  the  necessity  of  finding  purchasers  who  would  profit 
by  the  opportunity.  Now  it  was  du  Tillet's  idea  to  reap  the 
benefit  without  keeping  his  money  locked  up  in  a  lengthy 
speculation.  In  other  words,  he  meant  to  kill  the  affair,  so 
that  a  corpse  which  he  knew  how  to  resuscitate  might  be 
knocked  down  to  him. 

In  such  emergencies  as  this,  the  Gobsecks,  Pal  mas,  Wer- 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  67 

brusts,  and  Gigonnets  all  lent  each  other  a  hand,  but  du  Tillet 
did  not  know  them  well  enough  to  ask  them  to  help  him;  and, 
beside,  he  meant  to  hide  his  action  in  the  matter  so  thoroughly 
that,  while  he  steered  the  whole  business,  he  might  receive  all 
the  profits  and  none  of  the  disgrace  of  the  robbery.  So  he 
saw  the  necessity  of  one  of  those  animated  lay  figures  termed 
"men  of  straw"  in  commercial  phrase.  The  man  who  had 
once  before  acted  the  part  of  a  stock-jobber  for  him  seemed  to 
be  a  suitable  tool  to  his  hand,  and  he  infringed  the  divine  rights 
by  creating  a  man.  Of  a  former  commercial  traveler,  without 
a  centime  on  this  earth,  with  no  ability,  no  capacity  save  for 
empty  rambling  talk  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  and  but  just  suf- 
ficient wit  to  suffer  himself  to  be  drilled  in  a  part  and  to  play 
it  without  compromising  the  piece,  and  yet  endowed  with  the 
rarest  sense  of  honor — that  is  to  say,  a  faculty  for  silently 
accepting  the  dishonor  of  his  principal — of  him,  du  Tillet 
made  a  banker,  the  originator  and  promoter  of  commercial  en- 
terprises on  the  largest  scale ;  him  he  metamorphosed  into 
the  head  of  the  firm  of  Claparon. 

Should  the  exigencies  of  du  Tillet's  affairs  at  any  time  de- 
mand a  bankruptcy,  it  was  to  be  Charles  Claparon's  fate  to 
be  delivered  over  to  Jews  and  Pharisees,  and  Claparon  knew 
it.  Still,  for  the  present,  the  scraps  and  pickings  that  fell  to 
his  share  were  an  El  Dorado  for  a  poor  devil  who,  when  his 
chum  du  Tillet  came  across  him,  was  sauntering  along  the 
boulevards  with  no  prospects  beyond  the  two-franc  piece  in 
his  pockets  ;  so  his  friendship  for  and  devotion  to  du  Tillet, 
*  swelled  by  a  gratitude  that  did  not  look  to  the  future  and 
stimulated  by  the  cravings  of  a  dissolute  and  disreputable  life, 
led  him  to  say  Amen  to  everything. 

When  he  had  once  sold  his  honor  he  saw  that  it  was  risked 
with  so  much  prudence  that  at  length  he  came  to  have  a  sort 
of  dog-like  attachment  for  his  old  comrade  du  Tillet.  Clap- 
aron was  a  very  ugly  performing  poodle,  but  he  was  ready  at 
any  moment  to  make  the  leap  of  Curtius  for  his  master. 


68  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

In  the  present  scheme  Claparon  was  to  represent  one-half 
of  the  purchasers  of  the  lots,  as  Birotteau  represented  the 
other  half.  Then  the  bills  which  Claparon  would  receive 
from  Birotteau  should  be  discounted  by  some  money-lender, 
whose  name  du  Tillet  would  borrow  ;  so  that,  when  Roguin 
absconded  with  the  rest  of  the  purchase-money,  Birotteau 
would  be  left  on  the  brink  of  ruin.  Du  Tillet  meant  to  direct 
the  action  of  the  assignees;  there  should  be  a  forced  sale  of 
the  building  land,  and  du  Tillet  meant  to  be  the  purchaser ; 
he  would  buy  it  for  about  half  its  value,  and  pay  for  it  with 
Roguin's  money  and  the  dividend  of  the  bankruptcy;  so 
under  different  names  he  was  in  possession  of  the  money  paid 
down  by  the  perfumer  and  his  creditor  to  boot. 

It  was  a  prospect  of  a  goodly  share  of  the  spoils  that  led 
Roguin  to  meddle  in  this  scheme;  but  he  had  practically 
surrendered  himself  at  discretion  to  a  man  who  could  and 
did  take  the  lion's  part.  It  was  impossible  to  bring  du  Tillet 
into  a  court  of  law,  and  the  notary  in  a  remote  part  of  Swit- 
zerland, where  he  found  beauties  of  a  less  expensive  kind, 
was  lucky  to  have  a  bone  flung  to  him  once  a  month  or  so. 

The  ugly  scheme  was  no  deliberate  invention,  no  outcome 
of  the  broodings  of  a  tragedian  weaving  a  plot,  but  the  result 
of  circumstance.  Hatred,  unaccompanied  by  a  desire  for 
revenge,  is  as  seed  sown  upon  the  granite  rock :  du  Tillet 
swore  to  be  revenged  upon  Cesar  Birotteau,  and  the  prompt- 
ing was  one  of  the  most  natural  things  in  the  world  ;  if  it 
had  been  otherwise,  there  had  been  no  quarrel  between  angels 
of  darkness  and  the  angels  of  light. 

Du  Tillet  could  not,  without  great  inconvenience,  murder 
the  one  man  in  Paris  who  knew  that  he  had  been  guilty  of 
petty  theft ;  but  he  could  sully  his  old  master's  name  and 
crush  him  until  his  testimony  was  no  longer  admissible.  For 
a  long  time  past  the  thought  of  vengeance  had  been  germin- 
ating in  his  mind  ;  but  it  had  come  to  nothing.  The  rush 
of  life  in  Paris  is  so  swift  and  so  full  of  stir,  chance  counts 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  69 

for  so  much  in  it,  that  even  the  most  energetic  haters  do  not 
look  very  far  ahead  ;  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  constant 
ebb  and  flow  is  unfavorable  to  premeditated  action,  it  affords 
excellent  opportunities  for  carrying  out  projects  that  lurk  in 
politic  brains,  clever  enough  to  lie  in  wait  for  the  chances 
that  come  with  the  tide.  Du  Tillet  had  had  a  dim  inkling 
of  the  possibility  of  ruining  Cesar  from  the  moment  when 
Roguin  first  opened  out  his  case  to  him;  and  he  had  not 
miscalculated. 

Roguin,  meanwhile,  on  the  very  point  of  leaving  his  idol, 
drained  the  rest  of  the  philtre  from  the  broken  cup,  going 
daily  to  the  Champs-Elysees  and  returning  home  in  the  small 
hours.  There  were  good  grounds,  therefore,  for  Madame 
Cesar's  suspicious  theories.  When  a  man  has  made  up  his 
mind  to  play  such  a  part  as  du  Tillet  had  assigned  to  Roguin, 
he  perforce  acquires  the  talents  of  a  great  actor  ;  he  has  the 
eyes  of  a  lynx  and  the  penetration  of  a  seer ;  he  finds  ways 
of  magnetizing  his  dupe ;  so  the  notary  had  seen  Birotteau 
long  before  Birotteau  set  eyes  on  him  ;  and  when  he  saw  that 
he  was  recognized,  he  held  out  a  hand  while  he  was  still  at 
some  distance. 

"  I  have  just  been  making  the  will  of  a  great  person  who 
has  not  a  week  to  live,"  said  he,  with  the  most  natural  air  in 
the  world,  "  but  they  have  treated  me  like  a  village  doctor — 
sent  their  carriage  to  fetch  me  and  let  me  go  home  from 
thence  afoot." 

A  slight  cloud  of  suspicion  which  had  darkened  the  per- 
fumer's brows  cleared  away  at  these  words  ;  but  Roguin  had 
noticed  it  and  took  good  care  not  to  be  the  first  to  speak 
about  the  building  land,  for  he  meant  to  give  his  victim  the 
finishing  stroke. 

"After  a  will  come  marriage-contracts,"  said  Birotteau; 
"such  is  life.  Ah  !  by-the-by,  Roguin,  old  fellow,  when  do 
we  make  a  match  of  it  with  the  Madeleine,  eh  ?  "  and  he 
tapped  the  other  on  the  chest.     Among  men,  the  best-con- 


70  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

• 

ducted  bourgeois  will  try  to  appear  a  bit  of  a  rogue  with  the 
women. 

"Well,  it  is  to-day  or  never,"  returned  the  notary  with  a 
diplomatic  look.  "We  are  afraid  that  the  affair  will  get 
noised  abroad  ;  already  two  of  my  richest  clients  want  to  go 
into  the  speculation,  and  are  very  keen  about  it.  So  you  can 
take  it  or  leave  it.  After  twelve  o'clock  this  morning  I  shall 
draw  up  the  deeds,  and  till  one  o'clock  it  is  open  to  you  to 
join  us  if  you  choose.  Good-by.  Xandrot  made  a  rough 
draft  of  the  documents  for  me  last  night,  and  I  am  about  to 
read  them  through  this  very  minute." 

"All  right,  the  thing  is  settled,  you  have  my  word,"  cried 
Birotteau,  hurrying  after  the  notary,  and  striking  hands  upon 
it.  "  Take  the  hundred  thousand  francs  that  were  to  have 
been  my  daughter's  portion." 

"  Good,"  said  Roguin,  as  he  walked  away. 
_  In  the  brief  interval  as  Birotteau  returned  to  young  Popinot 
he  felt  a  sensation  of  feverish  heat  run  through  him,  his  dia- 
phragm contracted,  sounds  rang  in  his  ears. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  sir  ?  "  asked  the  assistant,  looking  at 
his  employer's  pale  face. 

"  Ah,  my  boy,  I  have  just  concluded  a  big  piece  of  business 
with  a  single  word.  No  one  in  such  a  position  can  help  feel- 
ing some  emotion.  You  know  all  about  it,  however ;  and, 
beside,  I  brought  you  here  so  that  we  could  talk  comfortably 
where  no  one  will  listen  to  us.  Your  aunt  is  pinched  ;  what 
did  she  lose  her  money  in  ?     Tell  me  about  it." 

"  My  uncle  and  aunt  put  their  capital  into  Nucingen's 
bank,  and  were  obliged  to  take  over  shares  in  the  Worstchin 
mines  in  settlement  of  their  claims  ;  no  dividends  have  been 
paid  on  them  as  yet,  and  at  their  time  of  life  it  is  difficult  to 
live  on  hope." 

"  Then  how  do  they  live  ?  " 

"  They  have  been  so  good  as  to  accept  my  salary." 

"Good,  Anselme,  good,"  said  the  perfumer,  looking  up 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  71 

with  a  tear  in  his  eyes ;  "  you  are  worthy  of  the  attachment  I 
feel  for  you.  And  you  shall  be  well  rewarded  for  your  appli- 
cation in  my  service." 

As  he  spoke,  the  merchant  grew  greater  in  his  own  estima- 
tion as  well  as  in  Popinot's  eyes  ;  a  sense  of  his  adventitious 
superiority  was  artlessly  revealed  in  his  homely  and  paternal 
way  of  speaking. 

"  What !     Can  you  have  guessed  my  passion  for ?" 

"  For  whom  ?  "  asked  the  perfumer. 

"For  Mademoiselle  Cesarine." 

"Boy!"  cried  Birotteau,  "you  are  very  bold.  But  keep 
your  secret  carefully ;  I  promise  to  forget  it,  and  you  shall  go 
out  of  the  house  to-morrow.  I  don't  blame  you ;  the  devil, 
no !  In  your  place  I  should  have  done  just  the  same.  She 
is  so  pretty." 

"Ah,  sir  !  "  cried  the  assistant,  in  such  a  perspiration  that 
his  shirt  felt  damp. 

"  This  cannot  be  settled  in  a  day,  my  boy.  Cesarine  is 
her  own  mistress,  and  her  mother  has  her  ideas.  So  keep 
yourself  to  yourself,  wipe  your  eyes,  hold  your  heart  well  in 
hand,  and  we  will  say  no  more  about  it.  I  should  not  blush 
to  have  you  for  a  son-in-law.  As  the  nephew  of  Monsieur 
Popinot,  judge  of  a  Tribunal  of  First  Instance,  and  as  the 
Ragons'  nephew,  you  have  as  good  a  right  to  make  your  way 
as  another,  but  there  are  ifs  and  buts  and  ands  /  What  a 
devil  of  a  notion  you  have  sprung  upon  me  in  the  middle  of 
a  talk  about  business  !  There,  sit  you  down  on  that  bench, 
and  business  first  and  love  affairs  after.  Now,  Popinot,  is 
there  mettle  in  you  ?  "  said  Birotteau,  looking  at  his  assistant. 
"  Do  you  feel  that  you  have  courage  enough  to  wrestle  with 
those  that  are  much  stronger  than  you?  for  a  hand-to-hand 
fight,  eh?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"  To  keep  up  a  long  and  dangerous  combat ?" 

"What  is  it?" 


72  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"  To  drive  Macassar  Oil  from  the  field  !  "  cried  Birotteau, 
drawing  himself  up  like  one  of  Plutarch's  heroes.  "  We  must 
not  undervalue  the  enemy ;  he  is  strong,  well  intrenched,  and 
formidable.  Macassar  Oil  has  been  well  pushed.  It  is  a 
clever  idea,  and  the  shape  of  the  bottles  is  out  of  the  com- 
mon. I  had  thoughts  of  a  triangular  bottle  for  this  plan  of 
mine,  but,  after  mature  reflection,  I  am  inclined  for  little 
blown  glass  flasks  covered  with  wicker  work  ;  they  would  look 
mysterious,  and  the  public  like  anything  that  tickles  their 
curiosity." 

"  It  would  cost  a  good  deal,"  said  Popinot.  "  Everything 
ought  to  be  on  the  cheapest  possible  footing,  so  as  to  allow  a 
heavy  discount  to  the  trade." 

"Right,  my  boy;  those  are  sound  principles  of  business. 
Bear  in  mind  that  Macassar  Oil  will  show  fight !  'Tis  a  spe- 
cious thing;  the  name  is  attractive.  It  is  put  before  the  public 
as  a  foreign  importation,  and  we,  unluckily,  are  in  our  own 
country.  Look  here,  Popinot,  do  you  feel  strong  enough  to 
do  for  Macassar?  To  begin  with,  you  will  oust  it  from  the 
export  trade ;  it  seems  that  Macassar  really  does  come  from 
the  Indies,  so  it  is  more  natural  to  send  French  goods  to  the 
Indians  than  to  ship  them  back  the  stuff  that'  they  are  sup- 
posed to  send  to  us.  So  there's  the  export  trade  for  you ! 
But  it  will  have  to  be  fought  out  abroad,  and  all  over  the 
country  ;  and  Macassar  Oil  has  been  so  well  advertised  that 
it  is  no  use  blinking  the  fact  that  it  has  a  hold  ;  it  is  pushed 
everywhere,  and  the  public  is  familiar  with  it." 

"  I  will  do  for  it  !  "  cried  Popinot,  with  eyes  on  fire. 

"And  how?  "  returned  Birotteau.  "It  is  like  the  impetu- 
osity of  these  young  people  !     Just  hear  me  out." 

Anselme  looked  like  a  soldier  presenting  arms  to  a  marshal 
of  France. 

"  I  have  invented  an  oil,  Popinot,  an  oil  which  invigorates 
the  scalp,  stimulates  the  growth  of  the  hair,  and  preserves  its 
color — an  oil  for  both  sexes.     The  essence  should  have  no 


CESAR  B1R0TTEAU.  73 

less  success  than  the  Pate  and  the  Lotion,  but  I  do  not  want 
to  exploit  the  secret  by  myself;  I  am  thinking  of  retiring 
from  business.  I  want  you,  my  boy,  to  bring  out  the  Coma- 
gen — from  the  Latin  word  coma,  which  means  hair  (so  Mon- 
sieur Alibert,  physician  to  the  King,  told  me).  In  '  Bere- 
nice,' Racine's  tragedy,  too,  there  is  a  king  of  Comagene,  a 
lover  of  the  beautiful  queen  who  was  so  famous  for  her  hair ; 
no  doubt  it  was  out  of  compliment  to  her  that  he  called  his 
kingdom  Comagene.  How  clever  these  great  men  of  genius 
are  !  they  descend  to  the  smallest  details." 

Little  Popinot  listened  to  these  incongruities,  evidently 
meant  for  his  benefit,  who  had  had  some  education,  and  yet 
kept  his  countenance. 

"Anselme,"  continued  Birotteau,  "I  have  cast  my  eyes  on 
you  as  the  founder  of  a  wholesale  druggist's  business  in  the 
Rue  des  Lombards.  I  will  be  a  sleeping-partner,  and  find 
you  the  capital  to  start  it  with.  When  we  have  begun  with 
the  Comagen,  we  will  try  essence  of  vanilla  and  essence  of 
peppermint.  In  short,  by  degrees  we  will  go  into  the  drug 
trade  and  revolutionize  it,  by  selling  articles  in  a  concentrated 
form  instead  of  the  raw  products.  Are  you  satisfied,  ambi- 
tious young  man  ?  " 

Anselme  was  so  overcome  that  he  could  not  reply,  but  his 
tear-filled  eyes  made  answer  for  him.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
this  offer  was  the  outcome  of  a  fatherly  indulgence  which  took 
this  means  of  saying,  "Deserve  Cesarine  by  earning  wealth 
and  respect." 

"I,  too,  will  succeed,  sir,"  he  said  at  last,  taking  Birot- 
teau's  emotion  for  astonishment. 

"  Just  what  I  was  at  your  age,"  cried  the  perfumer ;  "  those 
were  just  the  very  words  I  used  !  Whether  you  have  my 
daughter  or  not,  at  any  rate  you  will  have  a  fortune.  Well, 
my  boy,  what  has  come  to  you  ?  " 

"Let  me  hope  that  by  gaining  the  one  I  may  win  the 
other." 


74  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"  I  do  not  forbid  you  to  hope,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Birot- 
teau,  touched  by  Anselme's  tone. 

"  Very  well,  sir ;  may  I  begin  to  look  out  at  once  for  a  store, 
so  as  to  begin  as  soon  as  possible  ?  " 

"Yes,  my  boy.  To-morrow  we  will  shut  ourselves  up  in 
the  factory.  You  might  look  in  at  Livingston's  on  your  way 
to  the  Rue  des  Lombards  and  see  if  my  hydraulic  press  will 
be  in  working  order  by  to-morrow.  To-night,  at  dinner-time, 
we  will  go  to  see  that  great  man,  kind  Monsieur  Vauquelin, 
and  ask  him  about  this.  He  has  been  investigating  the  com- 
position of  hair  quite  lately,  trying  to  find  out  its  coloring 
matter,  and  where  it  comes  from,  and  what  hair  is  made  of. 
It  all  lies  in  that,  Popinot.  You  shall  know  my  secret,  and 
all  that  remains  to  do  is  to  exploit  it  intelligently.  Look  in 
at  Pieri  Berard's  before  you  go. round  to  Livingston.  My 
boy,  Monsieur  Vauquelin's  disinterestedness  is  one  of  the  great 
troubles  of  my  life.  You  cannot  get  him  to  accept  anything. 
Luckily,  I  found  out  from  Chiffreville  that  he  wanted  a 
Madonna  at  Dresden,  engraved  by  one  Miiller,  and,  after  two 
years  of  inquiry  for  it  in  Germany,  Berard  has  found  a  copy 
at  last — a  proof  before  letters  on  India  paper ;  it  cost  fifteen 
hundred  francs,  my  boy.  And  now  to-day  our  benefactor 
shall  see  it  in  the  antechamber  when  he  comes  to  the  door 
with  us;  framed,  of  course,  you  will  make  sure  of  that.  So  in 
that  way  we  shall  recall  ourselves  to  his  memory,  my  wife  and 
Iij  for,  as  to  gratitude,  we  have  put  his  name  in  our  prayers 
every  day  these  sixteen  years.  For  my  part,  I  shall  never  for- 
get him ;  but,  you  know,  Popinot,  these  men  of  science  are  so 
deep  in  their  work  that  they  forget  everything,  wife  and  chil- 
dren, and  those  they  have  done  a  good  turn  to.  As  for  the 
like  of  us,  our  little  intelligence  permits  us  to  have  warm  hearts 
at  any  rate,  That  is  some  comfort  for  not  being  a  great  man. 
These  gentlemen  at  the  Institute  are  all  brain,  as  you  will  see; 
you  will  never  come  across  one  of  them  in  a  church.  There 
is  Monsieur  Vauquelin,  always  in  his  study  when  he  isn't  in 


CJESAR  BIROTTEAU.  75 

his  laboratory;  I  like  to  believe  though  that  he  thinks  of  God 
while  he  analyzes  His  works.  This  is  the  understanding :  I 
am  to  find  the  capital,  I  will  put  you  in  possession  of  my 
secret,  and  we  will  divide  the  profits  equally,  so  there  will  be 
no  need  to  draw  up  a  deed.  Good  success  to  us  both  !  We 
will  tune  our  pipes.  Off  with  you,  my  boy  ;  I  have  affairs  of 
my  own  to  see  after.  One  moment,  Popinot ;  in  three  weeks' 
time  I  am  going  to  give  a  grand  ball,  have  a  suit  of  clothes 
made,  and  come  to  it  like  a  merchant  already  in  a  good  way 
of  business " 

This  last  piece  of  kindness  touched  Popinot  so  much  that 
he  grasped  Cesar's  large  hand  in  his  and  kissed  it.  The  good 
man's  confidence  had  flattered  the  lover,  and  a  man  in  love 
is  capable  of  anything. 

"  Poor  fellow  !  "  said  Birotteau,  as  he  watched  his  assistant 
hurrying  across  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries,  "if  Cesarine 
only  cared  about  him  !  But  he  limps,  his  hair  is  the  color  of 
a  basin,  and  girls  are  such  queer  things  !  I  can  scarcely  be- 
lieve that   Cesarine And  her  mother  would  like  to  see 

her  a  notary's  wife.  Alexandre  Crottat  would  make  her  a  rich 
woman  ;  money  makes  anything  endurable,  while  there  is  no 
happiness  that  will  stand  the  test  of  poverty.  After  all,  I  have 
made  up  my  mind  that  my  girl  shall  be  mistress  of  herself,  so 
that  she  stops  short  of  folly." 

Birotteau's  next-door  neighbor,  Cayron  by  name,  was  a 
dealer  in  umbrellas,  sunshades,  and  walking-sticks.  He  came 
from  Languedoc,  his  business  was  not  doing  well,  and  Cesar 
had  helped  him  several  times.  Cayron  asked  nothing  better 
than  to  contract  his  limits  and  to  effect  a  proportionate  saving 
in  house  rent  by  giving  up  two  second-floor  rooms  to  the 
wealthy  perfumer. 

"Well,  neighbor,"  said  Birotteau  familiarly  as  he  entered 
the  umbrella  store,  "my  wife  consents  to  the  enlargement  of 
our  place.  If  you  like,  we  will  go  round  and  see  Monsieur 
Molineux  at  eleven  o'clock." 


76  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"My  dear  Monsieur  Birotteau,"  returned  he  of  the  um- 
brella store,  "  I  have  never  asked  anything  for  the  concession 
on  my  part,  but  you  know  that  a  good  man  of  business  ought 
to  turn  everything  to  money." 

"  The  deuce  !  "  cried  the  perfumer  ;  "  I  have  no  money  to 
throw  away,  and  I  am  waiting  to  know  if  my  architect  thinks 
the  thing  feasible.  '  Before  you  settle  anything,'  so  he  said, 
'  we  must  know  whether  the  floors  are  on  a  level ;  and  then  we 
must  have  Monsieur  Molineux's  leave  to  make  an  opening  in 
the  wall,  and  is  it  a  party  wall  ? '  And  after  that  I  shall  have 
to  turn  the  staircase  in  my  house,  so  as  to  alter  the  landing 
and  have  the  whole  place  level  from  end  to  end.  There  will 
be  a  lot  of  expense,  and  I  don't  want  to  ruin  myself." 

"Ah,  sir,"  cried  the  Languedocien,  "  when  you  are  ruined, 
heaven  and  earth  will  come  together  and  have  a  family." 

Birotteau  stroked  his  chin,  raised  himself  on  tiptoe,  and 
came  down  again. 

"Beside,"  Cayron  went  on,  "I  only  ask  you  to  take  this 

'  paper  of  me "  and   he  held  out  a  little  statement  for  five 

thousand  francs  and  sixteen  bills. 

"Ah!"  said  the  perfumer,  turning  them  over,  "all  for 
small  amounts,  at  two  months  and  three  months " 

"Take  them  of  me,  and  don't  charge  me  more  than  six 
per  cent.,"  pleaded  the  umbrella  dealer  humbly. 

"Am  I  a  Jew?"  asked  the  perfumer  reproachfully. 

"  Goodness,  sir,  I  took  them  to  du  Tillet  that  used  to  be 
your  assistant,  and  he  would  not  have  them  at  any  price; 
he  wanted  to  know  how  much  I  would  consent  to  lose,  no 
doubt." 

"I  know  none  of  these  signatures,"  said  the  perfumer. 

"  Well,  we  have  funny  names  in  the  cane  and  umbrella 
trade  ;  they  are  hawkers." 

"Well,  well;  I  do  not  say  that  I  will  take  the  lot,  but  I 
might  manage  to  take  all  at  the  shortest  dates." 

"  Don't  leave  me  to  run  after  those  horse-leeches  that  drain 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  77 

us  of  the  best  part  of  the  profits,  for  a  thousand  francs  at  four 
months ;  take  the  lot,  sir  !  I  do  so  little  discounting  that  no 
one  gives  me  credit ;  that  is  the  death  of  us  poor  retailers  in  a 
small  way." 

"  Well,  well,  I  will  take  your  little  bills.  Celestin  shall 
settle  it  with  you.  Be  ready  at  eleven.  Here  comes  my 
architect,  Monsieur  Grindot,"  added  the  perfumer,  as  he  saw 
the  young  man  whom  he  had  met  by  appointment  at  Monsieur 
de  la  Billardiere's  house  on  the  previous  evening.  "  Unlike 
most  men  of  talent,  you  are  punctual,  sir,"  said  Cesar,  in  his 
most  genteel  manner. 

"  If  punctuality — in  the  phrase  of  a  king  who  was  a  clever 
man  as  well  as  a  great  statesman — is  the  courtesy  of  kings,  it 
is  no  less  the  fortune  of  architects.  Time — time  is  money; 
most  of  all  for  your  artists.  Architecture  combines  all  the 
other  arts,  I  permit  myself  to  say.  We  will  not  go  through 
the  store,"  he  added,  as  he  showed  the  way  to  the  sham  car- 
riage entrance. 

Four  years  ago  M.  Grindot  had  taken  the  Grand  Prize 
for  architecture ;  and  now  he  had  just  returned  from  a  three 
years'  sojourn  in  Rome  at  the  expense  of  the  State.  While  he 
was  in  Italy  the  young  artist  had  thought  of  his  art ;  in  Paris 
he  turned  his  attention  to  money-making.  Governments 
alone  can  give  the  necessary  millions  to  erect  public  buildings 
and  monuments  to  an  architect's  enduring  fame  ;  and  it  is 
so  natural,  when  fresh  from  Rome,  to  take  one's  self  for  a 
Fontaine  or  a  Percier,  that  every  ambitious  young  architect 
has  a  leaning  toward  ministerialism ;  so  the  subsidized  Liberal, 
metamorphosed  into  a  Royalist,  sought  to  find  patrons  in 
power ;  and  when  a  Grand  Prize  conducts  himself  after  this 
fashion,  his  comrades  call  him  a  sycophant. 

Two  courses  lay  open  to  the  youthful  architect — he  might 
serve  the  perfumer  or  make  as  much  as  he  could  out  of  him. 
But  Birotteau  the  deputy-mayor  ;  Birotteau,  the  future  pos- 
sessor of  half  of   that   building   estate  near  the  Madeleine, 


78  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

where  a  quarter  full  of  handsome  houses  was  sure  to  be  built 
sooner  or  later,  was  a  man  worth  humoring,  so  Grindot  sacri- 
ficed present  gain  to  future  opportunities.  Patiently  he  lis- 
tened to  the  plans,  ideas,  and  vain  repetitions  of  this  store- 
keeping  Philistine,  the  artist's  butt  and  laughing-stock,  and 
the  particular  object  of  his  scorn,  and  followed  the  perfumer 
about  his  house,  bowing  respectfully  to  his  ideas.  When 
Birotteau  had  said  all  that  he  had  to  say,  the  young  architect 
tried  to  give  a  summary  of  his  own  views. 

"You  have  three  windows  looking  out  upon  the  street  in 
your  own  house,"  he  said,  "  as  well  as  the  window  that  is 
wasted  on  the  stairs  and  required  for  the  landing.  To  these 
four  windows  you  add  two  on  the  same  floor  in  the  next  house, 
by  turning  the  staircase  so  that  you  can  walk  on  level  from 
one  end  to  the  other  on  the  side  nearest  the  street." 

"You  have  understood  me  exactly,"  said  the  amazed  per- 
fumer. 

"To  carry  out  your  plan,  we  shall  have  to  light  the  new 
staircase  from  above,  and  contrive  a  porter's  lodge  in  the 
plinth." 

"Plinth?" 

"Yes  ;  the  part  of  the  wall  under  the " 

"  I  see,  sir." 

"As  to  your  rooms,  and  their  arrangements  and  decora- 
tion, give  me  carte-blanche.  I  should  like  to  make  them 
worthy " 

"  Worthy  !     You  have  said  the  very  word,  sir." 

"  How  long  can  you  give  me  to  carry  out  this  scheme  of 
decoration  ?  " 

' '  Twenty  days. ' ' 

"  What  are  you  prepared  to  put  down  for  the  workmen  ?  " 

"  Well,  what  are  the  repairs  likely  to  mount  up  to  ?  " 

"An  architect  can  estimate  the  cost  of  a  new  building  al- 
most to  a  centime,"  said  the  other  ;  "  but  as  I  have  not  under- 
taken a  bourgeois  job  as  yet  (pardon  me,  sir,  the  word  slipped 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  79 

out),  I  ought  to  tell  you  beforehand  that  it  is  impossible  for 
me  to  give  estimates  for  alterations  and  repairs.  In  a  week's 
time  I  might  be  able  to  make  a  rough  guess.  Put  your  confi- 
dence in  me;  you  shall  have  a  charming  staircase  lighted 
from  above,  and  a  pretty  vestibule,  and  in  the  plinth " 

"The  plinth  again  !  " 

"  Do  not  be  anxious.  I  will  find  room  for  a  little  porter's 
lodge.  The  alteration  and  decoration  of  your  rooms  will  be 
a  labor  of  love.  Yes,  sir,  I  am  thinking  of  art  and  not  of 
making  money.  Above  all  things,  if  I  am  to  succeed,  I  must 
be  talked  about,  must  I  not?  So,  in  my  opinion,  the  best 
way  is  not  to  haggle  with  tradesmen,  but  to  obtain  a  good 
effect  cheaply." 

"  With  such  ideas,  young  man,"  Birotteau  said  patroniz- 
ingly, "  you  will  succeed." 

"  So  you  will  yourself  arrange  with  the  bricklayers, 
painters,  locksmiths,  carpenters,  and  cabinet-makers ;  and  I, 
for  my  part,  undertake  to  check  their  accounts.  You  will 
simply  agree  to  pay  me  a  fee  of  two  thousand  francs ;  it  will 
be  money  well  laid  out.  Put  the  whole  place  into  my  hands 
by  twelve  o'clock  to-morrow  and  tell  me  whom  you  mean  to 
employ." 

"  What  is  it  likely  to  cost  at  first  sight  ?  "  asked  the  elated 
Birotteau. 

"Ten  to  twelve  thousand  francs,"  said  Grindot,  "without 
counting  the  furniture;  for,  of  course,  you  will  refurnish  the 
rooms.  Will  you  give  me  the  address  of  your  carpet  manu- 
facturer? I  ought  to  come  to  an  understanding  with  him 
about  the  colors,  so  as  to  have  a  harmonious  unity." 

"  Monsieur  Braschon  in  the  Rue  Saint-Antoine  has  my 
order,"  said  the  perfumer,  assuming  a  ducal  air. 

The  architect  made  a  note  of  the  address  on  one  of  those 
little  tablets  which  are  unmistakably  a  pretty  woman's  gift. 

"  Well,"  said  Birotteau,  "  I  leave  it  all  to  you,  sir.  Still, 
wait  until  I  have  arranged  to  take  over  the  lease  of  the  two 


80  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

rooms  next  door,  and  obtained  permission  to  make  an  open- 
ing through  the  wall." 

"Send  me  a  note  this  evening,"  said  the  architect.  "I 
must  spend  the  night  in  drawing  plans..  We  architects  would 
rather  work  for  a  city  merchant  than  for  the  King  of  Prussia ; 
that  is  to  say,  as  far  as  our  own  taste  is  concerned.  In  any 
case,  I  will  set  about  taking  measurements,  the  height  of  the 
rooms,  the  dimensions  of  the  door  and  window  embrasures, 
and  the  size  of  the  windows." 

"  It  must  be  finished  by  the  date  I  have  given,  or  it  is  no 
good." 

"It  certainly  must,"  returned  the  architect.  "The  men 
shall  work  day  and  night,  and  we  will  employ  processes  for 
drying  the  paint;  but  do  not  let  builders  swindle  you,  make 
them  quote  beforehand,  and  have  the  agreement  in  writing." 

"Paris  is  the  only  place  in  the  world  where  one  can  make 
such  strokes  of  the  wand,"  said  Birotteau,  indulging  in  a 
flourish  worthy  of  some  Asiatic  potentate  in  the  "  Arabian 
Nights."  "Do  me  the  honor  of  coming  to  my  ball,  sir. 
All  men  of  talent  do  not  feel  the  contempt  for  trade  which 
some  heap  upon  it ;  and  I  expect  you  will  meet  one  scientific 
man  of  the  highest  rank — Monsieur  Vauquelin  of  the  Institute  ! 
— beside  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere,  Messieurs  le  Comte  de 
Fontaine,  Lebas,  a  judge,  and  president  of  the  Tribunal  of 
Commerce ;  and  several  magistrates,  le  Comte  de  Granville 
of  the  Court  Royal,  and  Popinot  of  the  Court  of  First  In- 
stance, Camusot  of  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce,  and  his  father- 
in-law  Cardot.  Perhaps,  even  le  Due  de  Lenoncourt,  First 
Gentleman  of  the  Bedchamber.  It  is  a  gathering  of  my 
friends,  quite  as  much  in  honor  of — er — the  liberation  of  the 
soil — as  to  celebrate  my — promotion  to  the  order  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor." 

Grindot's  gesture  was  peculiar. 

"Possibly — I  have  deserved  this — signal  mark  of  royal — 
favor  by  the  discharge  of  my  functions  at  the  Consular  Tribu- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  81 

nal,  and  by  fighting  for  the  Bourbons  on  the  steps  of  Saint- 
Roch's  church  on  the  13th  Vendemiaire,  when  I  was  wounded 
by  Napoleon.     These  claims  to " 

Constance,  in  morning  dress,  came  out  of  Cesarine's  bed- 
room, where  she  had  been  dressing ;  her  first  glance  stopped 
her  husband's  fervid  eloquence  ;  he  cast  about  for  some  every- 
day phrase  which  should  modestly  convey  the  tidings  of  the 
glory  awaiting  him  on  the  morrow. 

"  Here,  pet,  this  is  M.  de  Grindot,  a  distinguished  young 
man  of  great  talent.  This  gentleman  is  the  architect  whom 
Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere  recommended  ;  he  will  superintend 
our  little  alterations  here." 

The  perfumer  placed  himself  so  that  his  wife  could  not  see 
him,  and  put  his  finger  on  his  lips  as  he  uttered  the  word 
little.     The  architect  understood. 

"Constance,  this  gentleman  will  take  the  dimensions  of 
the  rooms.  Let  him  do  it,  dear,"  said  Birotteau,  and  he 
whisked  out  into  the  street. 

"Will  it  cost  a  great  deal?"  Constance  asked  the  archi- 
tect. 

"  No,  madame  ;  six  thousand  francs,  roughly  speaking " 

"  Roughly  speaking  !  "  cried  Mme.  Birotteau.  "  Sir,  I 
beg  of  you  not  to  begin  without  an  estimate,  and  to  do  noth- 
ing until  a  contract  has  been  signed.  I  know  the  way  of 
those  gentlemen  the  builders — six  thousand  means  twenty 
thousand.  We  are  not  in  a  position  to  squander  money.  I 
beg  of  you,  sir,  although  my  husband  is  certainly  master  in 
his  own  house,  to  leave  him  time  to  think  this  over." 

"  Monsieur  told  me,  madame,  that  he  must  have  the  rooms 
finished  in  twenty  days ;  if  we  make  a  delay,  you  may  incur 
the  expense  without  obtaining  the  result." 

"  There  is  expense  and  expense,"  said  the  fair  mistress  of 
the  Queen  of  Roses. 

"  Eh  !  madame  ;  is  it  so  very  glorious,  do  you  think,  for 
an  architect  who  would  like  to  erect  public  monuments  to 
6 


82  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

superintend  alterations  in  a  private  house?  I  only  undertook 
the  little  commission  to  oblige  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere, 
and  if  you  are  alarmed " 

He  made  as  if  he  would  withdraw. 

"  Well,  well,  sir,"  said  Constance,  going  back  to  her  room. 
Once  there,  she  hid  her  head  on  her  daughter's  shoulder. 
"  My  child,"  she  cried,  "  your  father  is  ruining  himself! 
He  has  engaged  an  architect  who  wears  mustaches  and  an 
imperial  on  his  chin,  and  talks  about  erecting  public  monu- 
ments !  He  will  fling  the  house  out  of  the  windows  to  build 
us  a  Louvre.  Cesar  is  always  in  a  hurry  when  there  is  any- 
thing crazy  to  be  done  ;  he  only  told  me  about  the  plan  last 
night,  and  he  is  setting  about  it  this  morning." 

"  Bah  !  mamma,  never  mind  papa  ;  Providence  has  always 
taken  care  of  you,"  said  Cesarine,  putting  her  arms  about  her 
mother.  Then  she  (the  demoiselle)  went  to  the  piano,  to 
show  the  architect  that  a  perfumer's  daughter  was  no  stranger 
to  the  fine  arts. 

When  the  architect  came  into  the  room,  he  was  surprised 
by  Cesarine's  beauty,  and  stood  almost  dumfounded.  For 
the  artist  saw  before  him  Cesarine  just  come  from  her  little 
room,  in  her  loose  morning-gown,  bright  and  blooming  with 
the  freshness  and  the  bloom  of  eighteen  years,  blue-eyed, 
and  slender,  and  fair-haired.  Youth  gave  the  elasticity  (so 
rare  in  Paris)  which  lends  firmness  to  the  most  delicate  tissues; 
youth  tinted  the  blue  network  of  veins  throbbing  beneath  the 
transparent  skin  with  the  color  adored  by  painters.  For 
though  she  lived  in  the  relaxing  atmosphere  of  a  Parisian 
store,  where  the  fresh  air  can  scarcely  penetrate  and  the  sun- 
light seldom  comes,  the  outdoor  life  of  Roman  Trasteverine 
could  not  have  been  a  more  successful  beautifier  than  Cesar- 
ine's manner  of  living.  Her  thick  hair  grew  erect  like  her 
father's,  and,  being  dressed  high,  afforded  a  view  of  a  well-set 
neck  among  a  shower  of  curls — the  elaborate  coiffure  of  the 
damsels  of  the  counter,  in  whom  a  desire  to  shine  inspires  a 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  83 

more  than  English  attention  to  trifling  details  in  matters  of 
the  toilet. 

Cesarine's  beauty  was  neither  that  of  an  English  court  lady 
nor  of  a  French  duchess,  but  the  plump  and  auburn-haired 
comeliness  of  Rubens'  Flemish  women.  She  had  inherited 
her  father's  turned-up  nose,  but  its  delicacy  of  outline  gave  a 
sprightly  charm  to  a  face  of  the  essentially  French  type  so 
well  rendered  by  Largilliere.  The  rich  silken  tissue  of  the 
skin  indicated  the  abundant  vitality  of  girlhood.  Her  mother's 
broad  brow  was  lightened  by  a  girlish  serenity,  untroubled  by 
care,  and  there  was  a  tender  grace  in  the  expression  of  the 
blue  liquid  eyes  of  the  happy-hearted,  fair-haired  maid.  If 
happiness  had  taken  from  her  face  the  romantic  interest  which 
painters  inevitably  give  to  their  compositions  by  an  expres- 
sion somewhat  too  pensive,  the  vague,  wistful  instincts  of  the 
young  girl  who  has  never  left  her  mother's  wing  made  an 
approach  to  this  ideal.  With  all  her  apparent  slenderness, 
she  was  strongly  made.  Her  feet  indicated  her  father's  peas- 
ant origin,  a  racial  defect,  like  the  redness  of  her  hands — the 
sign-manual  of  a  purely  bourgeois  descent.  Sooner  or  later 
she  was  sure  to  grow  stout.  Occasionally  young  and  fashion- 
able women  had  come  within  her  ken  ;  and  in  course  of  time 
she  had  acquired  from  them  the  instinct  of  dress,  certain  ways 
of  carrying  her  head,  and  manners  of  speaking  and  moving, 
thus  copied,  which  turned  the  heads  of  the  assistants  and 
other  young  men  ;  in  their  eyes  she  seemed  to  have  a  distin- 
guished air. 

Popinot  had  vowed  to  himself  that  no  woman  but  Cesarine 
should  be  his  wife.  This  mobile  blonde,  whom  a  glance 
seemed  to  read,  who  seemed  ready  to  melt  into  tears  at  a  harsh 
word,  was  the  one  woman  in  whose  presence  he  could  feel 
conscious  of  masculine  superiority.  This  charming  girl  in- 
spired love,  without  leaving  time  to  consider  whether  or  not 
she  had  sufficient  soul  to  insure  that  the  love  should  be  last- 
ing ;  but  what  need  is  there  for  what  we  in  Paris  call  esprit,  in  a 


84  CESAR   BIROTTEAU. 

class  where  the  essential  elements  of  happiness  are  good-sense 
and  virtue  ? 

In  character,  Cesarine  was  a  second  edition  of  her  mother, 
slightly  improved  by  an  education  which  had  taught  her 
superfluous  accomplishments.  She  was  fond  of  music,  and 
had  made  a  crayon  drawing  of  the  "  Madonna  of  the  Chair; " 
she  perused  the  works  of  Mesdames  Cottin  and  Riccoboni, 
and  the  writings  of  Fenelon,  Racine,  and  Bernardin  de  Saint- 
Pierre.  She  never  appeared  at  her  mother's  side  at  the  cash 
desk  save  for  a  few  moments  before  dinner,  or  when,  on  rare 
occasions,  she  took  her  place.  Her  father  and  mother,  like 
all  self-made  people,  who  hasten  to  plant  the  seeds  of  ingrat- 
itude in  their  children  by  putting  the  younger  generation  on  a 
higher  level,  delighted  to  make  an  idol  of  Cesarine,  who, 
happily,  possessed  the  good  qualities  of  her  class  and  did  not 
take  advantage  of  their  weakness. 

Mme.  Birotteau  followed  the  architect's  movements  with 
earnest,  anxious  eyes;  looking  on  in  consternation,  calling 
her  daughter's  attention  to  the  strange  gyrations  of  the  foot- 
rule,  as  Grindot  took  his  measurements  after  the  manner  of 
architects  and  builders.  For  her,  each  one  of  those  strokes 
of  the  wand  seemed  to  lay  the  place  under  an  evil  enchant- 
ment and  boded  ill  to  the  house ;  she  would  fain  have  had 
the  walls  less  lofty  and  the  rooms  smaller,  and  dared  not  put 
any  questions  to  the  young  man  as  to  the  results  of  this 
sorcery. 

"Be  easy,  madame,"  he  said,  with  a  smile;  "I  shall  not 
carry  anything  away." 

Cesarine  could  not  help  laughing. 

"Sir,"  pleaded  Constance,  who  did  not  so  much  as  notice 
the  architect's  quip,  "  aim  at  economy ;  some  day  we  may  be 
able  to  make  you  a  return " 

Before  Cesar  went  to  M.  Molineux,  the  landlord  of  the 
next  house,  he  asked  Roguin  for  the  transfer  of  the  lease 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU:  86 

which  Alexandre  Crottat  was  to  have  drawn  up.  As  he  came 
away  from  the  notary's  house,  he  saw  du  Tillet  at  Roguin's 
study  window.  Although  the  liaison  between  his  sometime 
assistant  and  Mme.  Roguin  was  a  sufficient  explanation  of  du 
Tillet's  presence  in  the  house  at  a  time  when  the  negotiations 
for  the  building  land  were  impending,  Birotteau,  trustful 
though  he  was,  felt  uncomfortable.  Du  Tillet's  animated 
face  suggested  that  a  discussion  was  going  on. 

"Suppose  that  he  should  be  in  the  business  !  "  he  asked 
himself,  in  an  access  of  his  commercial  prudence. 

The  suspicion  flashed  like  lightning  across  his  mind. 
He  turned  again  and  saw  Mme.  Roguin  at  the  window ; 
and  then  the  banker's  presence  no  longer  looked  so  suspi- 
cious. 

"Still,  how  if  Constance  was  right?"  he  asked  himself. 
"  How  stupid  I  am  to  pay  any  attention  to  a  woman's  no- 
tions !  However,  I  will  talk  it  over  this  morning  with  our 
uncle.  It  is  only  a  step  from  the  Cour  Batave,  where  Moli- 
neux  lives,  to  the  Rue  des  Bourdonnais." 

A  suspicious  onlooker,  a  man  of  business  with  some  experi- 
ence of  rogues,  would  have  been  warned ;  but  Birotteau's 
previous  career,  together  with  his  lack  of  mental  grasp  (for  he 
was  but  little  fitted  for  retracing  a  chain  of  inductions,  a  pro- 
cess by  which  an  able  man  arrives  at  a  cause),  all  led  to  his 
ruin.  He  found  the  umbrella  dealer  dressed  in  his  best,  and 
was  starting  away  with  him  to  the  landlord,  when  Virginie, 
the  servant,  caught  her  master  by  the  arm. 

"The  mistress  hopes  you  will  not  go  out  again,  sir " 

"Come!"  cried  Birotteau;  "some  more  women's  no- 
tions! " 

"Without  taking  your  cup  of  coffee.     It  is  ready  for  you." 

"  Oh  !  all  right.  I  have  so  many  things  in  my  head, 
neighbor,"  said  Birotteau,  turning  to  Cayron,  "  that  I  do  not 
listen  to  my  stomach.  Be  so  good  as  to  walk  on  ;  we  shall 
meet  each  other  at  Monsieur  Molineux's  door,  unless  you  go 


86  CESAR  BIROTTEAO. 

up  and  explain  the  matter  to  him  first.  We  should  save  time 
that  way." 

M.  Molineux  was  an  eccentric  person  of  independent  means, 
a  specimen  of  a  kind  of  humanity  which  you  will  no  more  find 
out  of  Paris  than  you  will  find  Iceland  moss  growing  anywhere 
out  of  Iceland.  The  comparison  is  but  so  much  the  more  apt, 
for  that  the  man  in  question  belonged  to  that  doubtful  border- 
land between  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms  which  awaits 
the  Mercier,  who  shall  classify  the  various  cryptogamia  which 
strike  root,  thrive,  or  die  among  the  plaster  walls  of  the 
strange  unwholesome  old  houses  affected  by  the  species. 

This  particular  human  plant  was  an  umbellifer,  to  judge  by 
the  blue  tubular  cap  which  crowned  a  stem  sheathed  in  a  pair 
of  greenish-colored  breeches,  and  terminated  by  bulbous  roots 
enveloped  in  list  slippers.  At  first  sight  the  plant  seems 
harmless  and  colorless  enough  ;  there  is  certainly  nothing  to 
suggest  poison  in  its  appearance.  In  this  strange  freak  of 
nature  you  would  have  recognized  the  typical  shareholder, 
who  believes  in  all  the  news  which  the  daily  press  baptizes 
with  printer's  ink,  whose  "Look  at  the  paper"  is  a  final  ap- 
peal to  authority ;  this  (you  would  have  thought)  was  the 
bourgeois,  essentially  a  lover  of  order,  always  (in  theory)  in 
rebellion  against  the  powers  that  be,  to  whom  in  practice  he 
punctually  yields  obedience ;  a  ferocious  creature,  take  him 
singly,  who  grows  tame  in  a  crowd  of  his  like.  The  man 
who  is  obdurate  as  a  bailiff  where  his  dues  are  concerned,, 
gives  fresh  groundsel  to  his  birds,  and  saves  the  fish-bones  for 
the  cat ;  he  looks  up  in  the  middle  of  making  out  a  receipt  to 
whistle  to  the  canary ;  he  is  suspicious  as  a  turnkey,  but  will 
hurry  to  invest  his  money  in  some  doubtful  undertaking,  and 
then  try  to  recover  his  losses  by  the  most  sordid  meanness. 
The  noxious  qualities  of  this  hybrid  growth  are  only  discov- 
ered by  use ;  its  nauseous  bitterness  requires  the  coction  of 
some  piece  of  business  wherein  its  interests  are  mingled  with 
those  of  men. 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  87 

Like  all  Parisians,  Molineux  felt  a  need  to  make  his  power 
felt.  He  craved  that  particular  privilege  of  a  sovereignty- 
more  or  less  exercised  by  every  creature,  down  to  the  very 
porter,  over  a  larger  or  smaller  number  of  victims — a  woman, 
a  child,  a  clerk,- or  lodger,  a  horse,  a  dog,  or  monkey — that 
part  of  domination  which  consists  in  handing  on  to  another 
the  mortifications  received  by  an  aspirant  to  higher  spheres. 
The  tiresome  little  old  person  in  question,  having  neither 
wife,  nor  child,  nor  niece,  nor  nephew,  treated  his  charwoman 
so  harshly  that  she  gave  him  no  opportunity  of  venting  his 
spleen  upon  her,  and  avoided  all  collision  with  him  by  a 
rigorous  discharge  of  her  duties. 

So  his  appetite  for  domestic  tyranny  being  thus  balked,  he 
was  fain  to  find  other  ways  of  satisfying  it.  He  had  made  a 
patient  study  of  the  law  of  landlord  and  tenant  and  of  the  legal 
aspects  of  the  party-wall ;  he  had  fathomed  the  mysteries 
of  jurisprudence  with  regard  to  house-property  in  Paris,  and 
was  learned  in  its  infinitely  minute  intricacies  with  regard  to 
boundaries  and  abutments,  easements,  rates,  charges,  regula- 
tions for  the  cleansing  of  the  street,  hangings  for  Fete-Dieu 
processions,  waste-pipes,  lights,  projections  over  the  public 
way,  and  the  near  proximity  of  insanitary  dwellings.  All  his 
mental  and  physical  energies,  all  his  intelligence,  was  de- 
voted to  maintaining  his  authority  as  a  landlord  with  a  high 
hand  ;  he  had  made  a  hobby  of  his  occupation,  and  the  hobby 
was  becoming  a  mania. 

He  loyed  to  protect  citizens  against  encroachments  on  their 
rights,  but  opportunities  occurred  so  seldom  that  his  thwarted 
passion  expended  itself  upon  his  tenants.  A  tenant  became 
his  enemy,  his  inferior,  his  subject,  his  vassal.  He  felt  that 
their  homage  was  a  due,  and  regarded  those  who  passed  him 
without  a  salutation  on  the  stairs  as  boors.  He  made  out  his 
receipts  himself,  and  sent  them  at  noon  on  the  quarter-day; 
and  those  who  were  behindhand  received  a  summons  by  a 
certain  hour.     Then  followed  a  distraint  and  costs,  and  all 

D 


88  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

the  cavalry  of  the  law  came  into  the  field  with  the  celerity  of 
"the  machine,"  as  the  headsman  calls  his  instrument  of  ex- 
ecution. Molineux  gave  no  grace  and  no  delay ;  his  heart 
was  indurated  on  the  side  of  rents. 

"  I  will  lend  you  the  money  if  you  want  it;"  he  would  say 
to  a  solvent  tenant,  "  but  pay  me  my  rent ;  any  getting  be- 
hindhand with  the  rent  means  a  loss  of  interest  for  which  the 
law  provides  no  remedy." 

After  a  prolonged  study  of  the  skittish  humors  of  successive 
tenants  who  conformed  to  no  standard,  and,  like  successive 
dynasties,  nor  more  nor  less,  invariably  overturned  the  insti- 
tutions of  their  predecessors,  Molineux  had  promulgated  a 
charter  which  he  observed  religiously.  By  virtue  of  it  the 
good  man  never  did  any  repairs;  none  of  his  chimneys 
smoked,  his  staircases  were  always  in  order,  his  ceilings  white, 
his  cornices  above  reproach,  his  floors  held  securely  to  the 
joists,  and  there  was  no  fault  to  find  with  the  paint.  All  the 
locks  had  been  put  in  within  the  last  three  years,  every  win- 
dow-pane was  whole,  and  as  for  cracks  in  the  walls  they  did 
not  exist;  he  could  see  no  broken  tiles  in  the  floors  till  the 
tenants  were  leaving  the  house.  He  usually  appeared  upon 
the  scene  to  receive  the  incoming  tenants  with  a  locksmith 
and  a  painter  and  glazier,  very  handy  fellows,  he  said.  The 
tenant  was  doubtless  at  liberty  to  make  improvements;  but  if 
the  thriftless  creature  redecorated  his  rooms,  old  Molineux  set 
his  wits  to  work  and  pondered  night  and  day  how  to  dis- 
lodge him  and  let  the  newly  papered  and  painted  abode  to 
another  comer.  He  set  his  snares,  bided  his  time,  and  began 
the  whole  series  of  his  unhallowed  devices.  There  was  no 
subtlety  in  the  regulations  of  Paris  with  regard  tcrleases  that 
he  did  not  know.  He  indited  polite  and  amiable  communi- 
cations to  his  victims ;  but  beneath  the  manner,  as  beneath  the 
harmless  and  obliging  expression  of  the  pettifogging  scribbler 
himself,  lurked  the  spirit  of  a  Shylock. 

He  must  always  be  paid  six  months  in  advance,  to  be  de- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  89 

ducted  from  the  last  half-year's  rent,  subject  to  a  host  of 
thorny  conditions  of  his  own  invention.  He  assured  himself 
that  the  value  of  the  tenant's  furniture  was  sufficient  to  cover 
the  rent,  and  reconnoitred  every  new  tenant  like  a  detective 
when  he  came  in.  There  were  some  occupations  which  he 
did  not  like,  and  the  least  sound  of  a  hammer  frightened  him. 
When  the  time  came  for  handing  over  a  lease,  he  kept  it  back 
for  a  week,  conning  it  over  for  fear  it  should  contain  what  he 
denominated  "  notary's  et  ceteras." 

Apart  from  his  character  of  landlord,  Jean-Baptiste   Moli- 
neux  was  apparently  good-natured  and  obliging.      He  could 
play  a  game  of  boston   without   complaining  of  being  badly 
seconded  by  his  partner ;   his  stock  subjects   for  conversation 
were  of  the  ordinary  bourgeois  kind,  and  he  found  the  same 
things  laughable — the  arbitrary  acts  of  bakers  (the  rascals), 
who  give  short  weights,  which  are  winked  at  by  the  police, 
the  heroic  seventeen  deputies  of  the  Left.     He  read  the  Cure 
'  Meslier's    "Bon   Sens"   (Free  Thinker),   yet  went  to    mass, 
halting  between    Deism   and   Christianity ;  but  he   subscribed 
nothing  for  sacramental  bread,  under  the  plea  that  you  must 
resist  the    encroachments   of    the  priesthood.      The  indefati- 
gable redresser  of  grievances  would  write  to  this  effect  to  the 
newspapers,  though  the  newspapers  neither  inserted  his  letters 
nor  replied   to  them.     Molineux  was,  in   short,  in   many  re- 
spects the  ordinary  estimable  citizen  who  burns  a  yule-log  at 
Christmas,  draws  for  king  on   Twelfth  Night,  plays  tricks  on 
the  First  of  April,  makes  the  rounds  of  the  boulevards  when 
the  weather  is  fine,  goes  to  watch  the  skating ;  and  on  days 
when  there  are  to  be  fireworks  in  the  Place  Louis  XV.  will 
take  his  place  there  at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  with  a 
piece  of  bread  in  his  pocket,  so  as  to  be  "in  the  front  row." 
The  Cour  Batave,  where  the  little  old  man  lived,  is  a  result 
of  one  of  those  freaks  of  the  speculative  builder  which  cannot 
be  explained  after  they  have  taken  substantial  form.     It  is  a 
cloister-like  building  with  its  freestone  arcading,  its  covered 


90  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

galleries  surrounding  the  court  with  a  fountain  in  the  middle 
— a  thirsty  fountain  with  its  lion  jaws  agape,  not  to  supply, 
but  to  ask  for  water  of  every  passer-by.  Possibly  it  was  in- 
tended for  a  sort  of  Palais-Royal  to  adorn  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Denis.  There  is  a  little  light  and  stir  of  life  during  the  day 
in  the  unwholesome  pile  shut  in  on  all  four  sides  by  tall 
houses ;  it  lies  in  the  centre  of  a  labyrinth  of  dank  alleys, 
where  the  rheumatism  lurks  for  the  hurrying  foot-passenger,  a 
maze  of  dark,  narrow  passages  which  converge  here  and  con- 
nect the  Quartier  des  Halles  and  the  Quartier  Saint-Martin 
by  the  famous  Rue  Quincampoix  ;  but  at  night  there  is  no 
spot  in  Paris  more  deserted,  and  these  little  slums  might  be 
called  the  catacombs  of  commerce.  It  is  the  sink  of  several 
industries ;  and  if  there  are  few  natives  of  Batavia  proper, 
there  are  plenty  of  small  tradesmen. 

Naturally,  all  the  suites  of  rooms  in  this  merchant's  palace 
have  but  one  outlook— into  the  central  courtyard — and  for 
this  and  other  reasons  the  rents  asked  are  of  the  lowest.  M. 
Molineux  inhabited  one  of  the  angles  of  the  building.  Con- 
siderations of  health  had  prompted  the  choice  of  a  sixth-floor 
lodging;  for  fresh  air  was  only  to  be  had  at  a  height  of 
seventy  feet  from  the  ground.  From  the  leads,  where  the 
worthy  owner  of  house-property  was  wont  to  take  exercise,  he 
enjoyed  a  charming  view  of  the  windmills  of  Montmartre. 
He  grew  flowers  up  there,  too,  in  defiance  of  police  regula- 
tions against  these  hanging-gardens  of  the  modern  Babylon. 
His  sixth-floor  establishment  consisted  of  four  rooms,  without 
counting  the  water-closets  on  the  floor  above,  a  valuable  prop- 
erty to  which  his  claim  was  incontestable  ;  he  had  the  key,  he 
had  established  them.  On  a  first  entrance,  an  indecent  bare- 
ness at  once  revealed  the  miserly  nature  of  the  man.  Half-a- 
dozen  straw-bottomed  chairs  stood  in  the  lobby  ;  there  was  a 
glazed  earthenware  stove  ;  and  on  the  walls,  covered  with  a 
bottle-green  paper,  hung  four  prints  bought  at  sales.  In  the 
dining-room  you  beheld  a  couple  of  sideboards,  two  cages  full 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  91 

of  birds,  a  table  covered  with  oilcloth,  a  weather-glass,  mahog- 
any chairs  with  horsehair  cushions,  and  through  a  French 
window  a  view  of  the  aforesaid  hanging-gardens.  Short, 
antiquated,  green  silk  curtains  adorned  the  sitting-room,  and 
the  white-painted  wooden  furniture  was  upholstered  in  green 
Utrecht  velvet.  As  for  the  furniture  of  the  old  bachelor's 
room,  it  was  of  the  period  of  Louis  XV.;  disfigured  by  pro- 
longed wear,  and  so  dirty  that  a  woman  in  a  white  gown 
would  have  shrunk  from  contact  with  it.  The  mantel  boasted 
a  clock  ;  the  dial,  between  two  columns,  served  as  a  pediment 
beneath  a  statuette  of  Pallas  brandishing  a  lance — a  fabulous 
personage  of  antiquity.  The  tiled  floor  was  so  littered  over 
with  plates  full  of  scraps  for  the  cats  that  it  was  scarcely  pos- 
sible to  move  about  without  setting  a  foot  in  one  of  them. 
Above  the  rosewood  chest  of  drawers  hung  a  pastel — Moli- 
neux  in  his  youth.  Add  a  few  books,  tables  covered  with 
shabby,  green  cardboard  boxes,  a  case  full  of  the  stuffed  forms 
of  some  departed  canaries  on  a  console  table,  and,  to  com- 
plete the  list,  a  bed  so  chilly-looking  that  it  might  have  been 
a  rebuke  to  a  Carmelite. 

Cesar  Birotteau  was  charmed  with  Molineux's  exquisite 
politeness.  He  found  the  latter  in  his  gray  flannel  dressing- 
gown,  keeping  an  eye  on  the  milk  set  on  a  little  cast-iron 
plate  warmer,  in  a  corner  of  the  hearth,  while  he  poured  the 
contents  of  a  brown  earthen  pipkin,  in  which  he  had  been 
boiling  coffee-grounds,  into  his  coffee-pot  by  spoonfuls  at  a 
time.  The  umbrella  dealer  had  opened  the  door,  lest  his 
landlord  should  be  disturbed  in  this  occupation ;  but  Moli- 
neux,  holding  mayors  and  deputy-mayors  ("our  municipal 
officers,"  as  he  called  them)  in  great  veneration,  rose  at  first 
sight  of  the  magistrate,  and  stood  cap  in  hand  until  the  great 
Birotteau  should  be  seated. 

"  No,  sir Yes,  sir Ah,  sir,  if  I  had  known  that  I 

was  to  have  the  honor  of  housing  a  member  of  the  municipal 
government  of  Paris  amid  my  humble  Penates,  pray  believe 


92  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

that  I  should  have  made  it  my  business  to  repair  to  your 
house ;  although  I  am  your  landlord,  or — on  the  point — of — 
being " 

Here  Birotteau  by  a  gesture  entreated  him  to  put  on  his 
cap. 

"I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  kind;  I  shall  remain  bare- 
headed until  you  are  seated,  and  have  put  on  your  hat  if  you 
have  a  cold.  My  room  is  rather  chilly  ;  my  narrow  means 
do  not  permit — God  bless  you,  Mr.  Deputy-mayor  ! 

Birotteau  had  sneezed  while  fumbling  for  his  papers.  He 
held  them  out,  not  without  remarking  that  to  save  any  delay 
he  had  had  them  made  out  at  his  own  expense  by  M.  Roguin 
his  notary. 

"  I  do  not  call  Monsieur  Roguin's  knowledge  in  question  ; 
'tis  an  old  name,  well  known  in  the  Parisian  notariat ;  but  I 
have  my  little  ways  of  doing  things,  and  I  look  after  my 
affairs  myself,  a  hobby  excusable  enough ;  and,  then,  my 
notary  is " 

"But  this  is  such  a  simple  matter,"  said  the  perfumer, 
accustomed  to  prompt  decisions  on  the  part  of  buyers  and 
sellers. 

"Simple  /"  echoed  Molineux.  "  Nothing  is  simple  where 
house-property  is  concerned.  Ah  !  you  are  not  a  landlord, 
sir ;  so  much  the  happier,  you  !  If  you  but  knew  the  lengths 
to  which  a  tenant  will  push  ingratitude  and  what  precautions 
we  have  to  take  !     Now  just  listen  to  this,  sir  ;  I  have  a  tenant 

that "  and   for  fifteen   minutes   he   held    forth,    relating 

how  that  M.  Gendrin,  a  draughtsman,  had  eluded  the  vigi- 
lance of  the  caretaker  in  the  Rue  Saint-Honore.  M.  Gendrin 
had  perpetrated  scandals  worthy  of  a  Marat,  obscene  draw- 
ings !  and  the  police  tolerated  it ;  nay,  they  were  made  with 
the  connivance  of  the  police  !  Then  this  Gendrin,  an  artist 
of  thoroughly  immoral  character,  had  gone  back  to  the  house 
with  loose  women,  and  made  it  impossible  to  go  up  and  down 
the  stairs,  a  prank  worthy  of  a  man  who  drew  caricatures  to 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  93 

ridicule  the  Government.  And  why  all  these  misdeeds  ?  Be- 
cause he  was  asked  to  pay  his  rent  on  the  15th.  Gendrin 
and  Molineux  were  about  to  go  to  law  about  it ;  for,  while  the 
artist  did  not  pay,  he  insisted  on  occupying  the  empty  rooms. 
Molineux  received  anonymous  letters — from  Gendrin,  no 
doubt — threatening  to  murder  him  some  night  in  the  alleys 
about  the  Cour  Batave. 

"Things  have  arrived  at  such  a  pitch,  sir,"  he  went  on, 
"  that  the  prefect  of  police,  to  whom  in  confidence  I  related 
my  difficulty  (at  the  same  time  I  took  the  opportunity  of  saying 
a  word  or  two  touching  the  alterations  that  ought  to  be  made  in 
the  provisions  of  the  law  for  such  cases),  gave  me  an  authori- 
zation to  carry  firearms  in  self-defense." 

The  little  old  man  got  up  to  look  for  his  pistols. 

"  Here  they  are,  sir  !  "  cried  he. 

"  But  you  have  nothing  of  that  kind  to  fear  from  me,  sir," 
said  Birotteau,  glancing  at  Cayron  with  a  smile  that  plainly 
expressed  his  pity  for  such  a  man. 

Molineux  caught  the  glance,  and  was  shocked  to  see  such 
a  look  on  the  countenance  of  a  "municipal  officer,"  whose 
duty  it  was  to  see  to  the  safety  of  those  in  his  district.  He 
could  have  forgiven  it  in  anybody  else,  but  in  Birotteau  it  was 
unpardonable. 

"Sir,"  Molineux  answered  drily,  "one  of  the  most  highly 
respected  judges  in  the  Consular  Tribune,  a  deputy-mayor, 
and  an  honorable  merchant,  would  not  condescend  to  such 
baseness,  for  baseness  it  is  !  But  in  this  particular  case  you 
want  the  consent  of  your  landlord,  Monsieur  le  Comte  de 
Granville,  before  you  make  a  hole  in  the  wall,  and  stipulations 
must  be  made  in  the  agreement  touching  the  restoration  of  the 
wall  on  the  expiration  of  the  lease.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
too,  the  rent  is  a  great  deal  lower  than  it  will  be ;  rents  will 
go  up  all  about  the  Place  Vendome ;  they  are  going  up 
already  !  The  Rue  Castiglione  is  about  to  be  built.  I  am 
binding  myself  down — I  am  binding — myself " 


94  CESAR   BIROTTEAU. 

''Let  us  have  done  with  it,"  said  Birotteau.  "What  do 
you  want?  I  have  had  enough  experience  of  business  to 
guess  that  your  reasonings  can  be  silenced  by  the  great  argu- 
ment— money  !     Well,  how  much  do  you  want?" 

"  Nothing  but  what  is  fair,  sir.  How  long  has  your  lease 
to  run?  " 

"Seven  years,"  answered  Birotteau. 

"What  may  not  my  second  floor  be  worth  in  seven  years' 
time  ?  "  cried  Molineux.  "  What  will  two  furnished  rooms  let 
for  over  in  your  quarter  ?  More  than  two  hundred  francs  a 
month  very  likely!  I  am  binding  myself;  binding  myself 
down  by  a  lease.  So  we  will  set  down  the  rent  at  fifteen 
hundred  francs.  At  that  figure  I  will  consent  to  receive  you 
as  a  tenant  for  the  two  rooms  instead  of  M.  Cayron  here," 
giving  the  dealer  a  sly  wink,  "and  let  you  have  them  on 
lease  for  seven  consecutive  years.  The  opening  in  the  wall 
you  will  make  at  your  own  charges,  subject  to  your  bringing 
to  me  proof  that  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  Granville  sanctions  it 
and  waives  all  his  rights  in  the  matter.  Whatever  happens  in 
consequence  of  the  small  opening,  the  responsibility  will  rest 
upon  you ;  but  you  shall  be  in  nowise  bound  to  reinstate  the 
wall  so  far  as  I  am  concerned ;  you  shall  pay  me  down  five 
hundred  francs  now  instead ;  we  never  can  tell  what  may 
happen ;  and  I  don't  want  to  run  about  after  anybody  to  put 
up  my  wall  again  for  me." 

"  The  conditions  seem  to  me  scarcely  fair,"  put  in  Birotteau. 

"Then  you  must  pay  me  down  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
francs  hie  et  nunc,  to  be  carried  forward  till  the  last  six  months 
of  possession  ;  the  lease  will  be  a  sufficient  discharge.  Oh  ! 
I  will  take  bills  of  exchange  for  value  received  in  rent,  at  any 
date  you  please,  so  that  I  have  my  guarantee.  I  am  a  plain- 
dealing  man,  and  go  straight  to  the  point  in  business.  We 
will  stipulate  that  you  shall  wall  up  the  door  on  my  staircase, 
where  you  have  no  right  of  way — at  your  own  expense — in 
brick  and  mortar.     Reassure  yourself,  I  shall  not  call  upon  you 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  95 

to  make  it  good  when  the  lease  expires ;  I  shall  regard  the 
five  hundred  francs  as  an  indemnity.  You  will  always  find  me 
reasonable,  sir." 

"  We  in  business  are  not  so  particular,"  said  the  perfumer ; 
"  if  we  had  all  these  formalities,  we  should  do  no  business  at 
all." 

"  Oh,  in  business,  that  is  quite  another  thing,  especially  in 
the  perfumery  line,  where  everything  slips  off  and  on  like  a 
glove,"  said  the  little  old  man,  with  a  sour  smile.  "But 
with  house-property  in  Paris,  sir,  you  cannot  be  too  particular. 
Why,  I  had  a  tenant  in  the  Rue  Montorgueil " 

"  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  delay  your  breakfast,  sir,"  said 
Birotteau;  "  here  are  the  deeds,  set  them  right,  all  that  you 
ask  me  is  agreed  to  ;  let  us  sign  the  documents  to-morrow, 
and  give  our  promises  by  word  of  mouth  to-day,  for  to-mor- 
row my  architect  must  be  put  in  possession  of  the  place." 

Molineux  looked  again  at  the  umbrella  dealer.  "  There  is 
part  of  the  term  expired,  sir  ;  Monsieur  Cayron  has  no  mind 
to  pay  for  it ;  we  will  add  the  amount  to  the  little  bills,  so 
that  the  agreement  will  run  from  January  to  January.  That 
will  be  more  business-like." 

"  So  be  it,"  said  Birotteau. 
.  "  There  is  the  sou  in  the  franc  for  the  porter " 

"  Why,  you  are  not  allowing  me  to  use  the  staircase  and 
the  doorway;  it  is  not  right  that " 

"Oh!  but  you  are  a  tenant!"  cried  little  Molineux  in 
peremptory  tones,  up  in  arms  for  the  principle  involved. 
"  You  must  pay  door  and  window  taxes  and  your  share  of  the 
others.  If  once  we  clearly  understand  each  other,  sir,  there 
will  be  no  difficulties  hereafter.  Is  your  business  rapidly  in- 
creasing, sir  ;  are  you  doing  well  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Birotteau,  "  but  that  is  not  my  reason.  I  am 
inviting  a  few  of  my  friends,  partly  to  celebrate  the  evacuation 
of  the  foreign  troops,  partly  on  the  occasion  of  my  own  pro- 
motion to  the  Legion  of  Honor " 


96  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"Aha!"  said  the  flattering  Molineux,  "a  well-deserved 
honor." 

"Yes,"  said  Birotteau.  "It  may  be  that  I  have  shown 
myself  not  unworthy  of  this  signal  mark  of  royal  favor  by  act- 
ing in  my  capacity  at  the  Consular  Tribunal,  and  by  fighting 
for  the  Bourbons  on  the  steps  of  Saint-Roch,  on  the  13th 
of  Vendemiaire,  where  I  was  wounded  by  Napoleon ;  these 
claims " 

"  Equal  those  of  our  heroes  in  the  late  army.  The  ribbon 
is  red,  because  it  has  been  dyed  in  blood  shed  for  France." 

At  these  words,  a  quotation  from  the  "  Constitutional," 
Birotteau  could  not  resist  the  impulse  to  invite  little  Molineux, 
who  grew  quite  incoherent  in  his  thanks,  and  was  almost 
ready  to  forgive  the  slight  which  had  been  put  upon  him. 
The  old  man  went  as  far  as  the  stairhead  with  his  new  tenant, 
overwhelming  him  with  civilities. 

As  soon  as  they  were  outside  in  the  Cour  Batave,  Birotteau 
looked  at  Cayron  with  an  amused  expression. 

"  I  did  not  think  that  there  was  such  a  weak-minded  crea- 
ture in  existence,"  he  said  ;  "  idiot  "  had  been  on  the  tip  of 
his  tongue,  but  he  suppressed  it  in  time. 

"Ah,  sir!"  said  Cayron,  "  everybody  is  not  so  clever  as 
you  are." 

Birotteau  might  be  excused  for  thinking  himself  a  clever 
man  compared  with  Molineux ;  the  umbrella-dealer's  reply 
drew  a  pleasant  smile  from  him  ;  he  took  leave  of  his  com- 
panion with  a  regal  air. 

"  Here  am  I  at  the  Market,"  he  said  to  himself;  "  let  us 
arrange  about  the  hazelnuts." 

After  an  hour  spent  in  making  inquiries,  the  market-women 
referred  Birotteau  to  the  Rue  des  Lombards,  the  headquarters 
of  the  trade  in  nuts  for  confectionery,  and  there  his  friends 
the  Matifats  informed  him  that  the  only  wholesale  dealer  in 
hazelnuts  was  one  Mme.  Angelique  Madou,  resident  in  the 
Rue  Perrin-Gasselin  ;  and  that  this  was  the  one  house  in  the 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  97 

trade  for  genuine  Provencal  filberts  and  white  Alpine  hazel- 
nuts. 

The  Rue  Perrin-Gasselin  lies  in  a  quadrangle  bounded  by 
the  quay,  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  the  Rue  de  la  Ferronnerie, 
and  the  Rue  de  la  Monnaie,  a  labyrinth  of  slums  which  are, 
as  it  were,  the  entrails  of  Paris.  Here  countless  numbers  of 
heterogeneous  and  nondescript  industries  are  carried  on  ;  evil- 
smelling  trades,  and  the  manufacture  of  the  daintiest  finery, 
herrings  and  lawn,  silk  and  honey,  butter  and  tulle,  jostle 
each  other  in  its  squalid  precincts.  Here  are  the  headquarters 
of  those  multitudinous  small  trades  which  Paris  no  more  sus- 
pects in  its  midst  than  a  man  surmises  the  functions  performed 
by  the  pancreas  in  the  human  economy.  In  this  congested 
district,  in  which  one  Bidault  of  the  Rue  Grenetat  (otherwise 
known  as  Gigonnet  the  pawnbroker)  played  the  part  of  leech, 
the  whole  stock  of  goods  sold  in  the  Great  Market  is  kept. 
The  ancient  stables  are  warehouses  where  tons  of  oil  are 
stored ;  the  old  coach-houses  hold  thousands  of  pairs  of  cot- 
ton stockings. 

Mme.  Madou,  sometime  a  fish-wife,  had  gone  into  the 
"dry-fruit  line"  some  ten  years  before  this  present  year  of 
grace,  on  her  entrance  into  a  partnership  with  the  late  owner 
of  the  business,  who  had  an  old-established  connection  among 
the  ladies  of  the  Great  Market.  Her  beauty,  of  a  vigorous 
and  provocative  order,  had  disappeared  in  excessive  stoutness. 
She  lived  on  the  first  floor  of  a  yellow,  dilapidated  house,  held 
together  by  iron  clamps  at  every  story.  The  departed  dealer 
in  dry-fruit  had  succeeded  in  ridding  himself  of  competitors 
and  had  secured  a  monopoly  of  the  trade ;  so  that,  in  spite  of 
some  slight  defects  of  education,  his  successor  could  continue 
in  the  same  groove,  and  came  and  went  in  her  warehouses, 
old  out-buildings,  stables,  and  workshops,  where  she  waged 
war  against  insect  life  with  some  success. 

Mme.  Angelique  Madou  dispensed  with  counting-house, 
safe,  and  book-keeping  (for  she  could  neither  read  nor  write), 
7 


98  CESAR    BIROTTEAU. 

and  answered  a  letter  by  blows  of  the  fist,  for  she  looked  upon 
it  as  an  insult.  In  other  respects  she  was  a  good-natured 
soul,  with  a  high-colored  countenance,  and  a  bandanna  hand- 
kerchief tied  about  her  head  beneath  her  cap,  and  a  trumpet 
voice  which  won  the  respect  of  the  carmen  who  brought  goods 
to  the  Rue  Perrin-Gasselin,  and  whose  "rows"  with  her 
usually  ended  in  a  small  bottle  of  white  wine.  She  could  not 
well  have  any  trouble  with  the  growers  who  supplied  her,  for 
she  always  paid  cash  on  delivery,  the  only  way  of  carrying  on 
such  a  business  as  hers,  and  Mother  Madou  went  into  the 
country  to  see  them  in  the  summer-time. 

Birotteau  found  this  shrewish  saleswoman  among  her  sacks 
of  hazelnuts,  chestnuts,  and  walnuts. 

"Good-day,  my  dear  lady,"  said  the  jaunty  Birotteau  flip- 
pantly. 

"  Your  dear/"  returned  she.  "So  you  have  pleasant 
recollections  of  your  dealings  with  me,  have  you  ?  Have  we 
met  each  other  at  court  ?  " 

"  I  am  a  perfumer,  and,  what  is  more,  deputy-mayor  of  the 
Second  Arrondissement  of  Paris,  and  I  have  a  right  to  expect 
a  different  tone  from  you." 

"I  marry  when  I  have  a  mind,"  said  the  virago;  "I  am 
no  customer  at  the  mayor's  office,  and  don't  trouble  deputy- 
mayors  much.  And  as  for  my  customers  they  adore  me,  and 
I  talk  to  'em  as  I  please.  If  they  don't  like  it,  they  may  take 
themselves  somewhere  else." 

"See  what  comes  of  a  monopoly,"  muttered  Birotteau. 

"  Popole?  that's  my  godson ;  he  has  been  up  to  some  foolery 
perhaps  ;  have  you  come  for  him,  your  worship  ?  "  she  asked, 
in  milder  tones. 

"  No.  I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that  I  come  to  you 
as  a  customer." 

"All  right.  What  is  your  name,  my  lad  ?  I  haven't  seen 
you  here  before." 

"If  that  is  the  way  you  talk,  you  ought  to  sell  your  nuts 


'Good-day,  my  dear  lady,"  said   birotteau  flippantly. 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  99 

cheap,"  said   Birotteau,   and   he   mentioned   his   name   and 
designation. 

"  Oh  !  you  are  the  famous  Birotteau  with  the  handsome 
wife.  Well,  and  what  weight  do  you  want  of  these  little  dears 
of  hazelnuts,  honey?" 

"Six  thousand  pounds  weight." 

"It  is  as  much  as  I  have,"  said  the  saleswoman,  with  a 
voice  like  a  cracked  flute.  "You  are  not  in  the  do-nothing 
line,  marrying  the  girls,  and  making  scent  for  them.  Lord, 
bless  you  !  you  do  a  trade,  you  do  !  Sorry  I  have  so  little 
for  you  !  You  will  be  a  fine  customer,  and  your  name  will 
be  written  on  the  heart  of  the  woman  that  I  love  best  in  the 
world " 

"  Who  may  that  be  ?  " 

"Who  but  dear  Madame  Madou." 

"  What  do  you  want  for  the  nuts?  " 

"  Twenty-five  francs  the  hundredweight  to  you,  mister,  it 
you  take  the  lot." 

"Twenty-five  francs,"  said  Birotteau.  "That  is  fifteen 
hundred  francs  !  And  I  shall  very  likely  take  a  hundred 
thousand  pounds  weight  in  a  year  !  " 

"But  just  look  at  the  quality ;  no  husks!"  cried  she, 
plunging  a  red  arm  into  a  sack  of  filberts.  "  Sound  kernels, 
my  dear  sir.  Just  think,  now,  the  grocers  sell  their  mixed 
dessert  fruits  at  twenty-four  sous  the  pound,  and  in  every  four 
pounds  they  put  more  than  a  pound  of  hazelnuts.  Am  I  to  lose 
money  on  the  goods  to  please  you?  You  are  a  nice  man,  but 
I  don't  care  enough  about  you  yet  to  do  that.  As  you  are 
taking  such  a  quantity,  we  might  let  you  have  them  at  twenty 
francs,  for  it  won't  do  to  send  away  a  deputy-mayor ;  it  would 
bring  bad  luck  to  the  young  couples!  A  good  article;  just 
feel  the  weight  of  them  !  They  wouldn't  go  fifty  to  the 
pound  !  Sound  nuts  they  are,  not  one  single  maggot  among 
them  !  " 

"  Well,  send  six  thousand  pounds  weight  early  to-morrow 


100  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

morning  to  my  factory  in  the  Rue  Faubourg  du  Temple,  for 
two  thousand  francs  at  ninety  days." 

"  They  shall  be  punctual  as  a  bride  at  a  wedding.  Well, 
good-by,  Monsieur  le  Maire;  we  part  good  friends.  But  if  it 
is  all  the  same  to  you,"  following  Birotteau  into  the  court,  "  I 
would  rather  have  a  bill  at  forty  days,  for  I  have  let  you  have 
them  too  cheap,  and  I  can't  afford  to  lose  the  interest  on  the 
money  too.  For  all  his  sentimental  ways,  old  Gigonnet  sucks 
the  life  out  of  us,  as  a  spider  sucks  a  fly." 

"  Very  well,  yes,  fifty  days.  But  I'll  have  the  nuts  by 
weight,  so  as  not  to  lose  on  the  hollow  ones.  They  must  be 
weighed  or  I'll  have  nothing  to  do  with  them." 

"  Oh,  the  fox;  he  knows  that  dodge,  does  he?"  said  Mme. 
Madou ;  "you  can't  catch  him  napping.  Those  beggars  in 
the  Rue  des  Lombards  put  him  up  to  that  1  Those  great 
wolves  yonder  are  all  in  a  league  to  devour  us  poor  lambs." 

The  lamb  was  five  feet  high  and  three  feet  around ;  she  had 
not  a  vestige  of  a  waist,  and  looked  like  a  post  in  a  striped 
cotton  gown. 

As  he  went  along  the  Rue  Saint-Honor6,  the  perfumer, 
lost  in  his  schemes,  meditated  on  his  duel  with  Macassar 
Oil.  He  designed  the  labels,  decided  on  the  shape  of  the 
bottles,  the  quality  of  the  corks,  the  color  of  the  placards. 
And  people  say  that  there  is  no  poetry  in  business !  Newton 
did  not  make  more  calculations  over  the  discovery  of  the 
famous  binomial  theorem  than  Birotteau  made  for  the  ".  Com- 
agen  Essence"  (for  it  was  an  essence  now;  the  words  oil 
and  essence  possessed  no  definite  meaning  for  him,  and  he 
went  from  the  one  to  the  other).  All  these  combinations 
were  seething  in  his  head,  and  he  mistook  the  ferment  of  an 
empty  brain  for  the  germination  of  an  idea.  So  absorbed  was 
he  in  his  meditations  that  he  went  past  the  Rue  des  Bourdon- 
nais,  and,  bethinking  himself  of  his  uncle,  was  obliged  to  re- 
trace his  steps. 

Claude-Joseph  Pillerault,  formerly  a  retail  hardware  dealer 


CESAR  SIROTTEAU.  101 

at  the  sign  of  the  Golden  Bell,  was  one  of  those  human  beings 
whose  exterior  is  the  outward  and  visible  expression  of  a 
beautiful  nature ;  and  heart  and  brain,  language  and  thought, 
his  manner  and  the  clothes  that  he  wore,  were  all  in  harmony. 
He  was  the.  only  relation  that  Mine.  Birotteau  had  in  the 
world,  and  upon  her  and  on  Cesarine  Pillerault  had  centred 
all  his  affections ;  for  in  the  course  of  his  business  career  he 
had  lost  his  wife  and  his  son,  and  a  boy  whom  he  had  adopted, 
the  son  of  his  cook. 

These  cruel  bereavements  had  given  to  the  good  man's 
thoughts  a  cast  of  Christian  stoicism,  a  lofty  doctrine  which 
was  the  informing  spirit  of  his  life,  and  shed  the  radiance  of  a 
winter  sunset  over  his  last  years,  a  glow  that  brings  no  warmth. 
There  was  a  tinge  of  asceticism  about  the  thin,  worn  face, 
where  sallow  and  swarthy  tones  were  harmoniously  blended  ; 
you  saw  in  it  a  striking  resemblance  to  typical  presentments 
of  Time  ;  but  the  every-day  cares  of  a  retail  business  had 
touched  this  face,  there  was  less  of  the  monumental  quality, 
less  of  the  grimness  insisted  upon  by  painters,  sculptors,  and 
designers  of  bronze  figures  for  clocks. 

Pillerault  was  of  middle  height,  and  thick-set  rather  than 
stout.  Nature  had  fashioned  him  for  hard  work  and  a  long 
life;  he  was  strongly  built,  as  his  square  shoulders  indicated; 
a  man  of  phlegmatic  temper,  whose  feelings,  though  he  could 
feel,  did  not  lie  on  the  surface.  His  quiet  manner  and  reso- 
lute face  indicated  that  he  was  little  given  to  the  expression 
of  his  emotions  ;  but,  reserved  and  undemonstrative  though  he 
was,  there  were  depths  of  tenderness  in  Pillerault's  nature. 
The  principal  characteristic  of  the  hazel  eyes,  with  dark 
specks  in  them,  was  their  unvarying  clearness.  There  were 
deep  furrows  in  a  forehead  sallowed  by  time,  narrow,  con- 
tracted, and  stern,  and  covered  with  gray  hair,  cut  so  short 
that  it  looked  like  felt.  Prudence,  not  avarice,  was  expressed 
in  the  lines  of  the  thin  lips.  The  brightness  of  the  eyes  told 
of  a  temperate  life  ;  and,  indeed,  sincerity,  a  sense  of  duty,  and 


102  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

a.  real  humility  glorified  his  features  and  set  off  his  face,  as 
health  does. 

For  sixty  years  he  had  led  a  hard  and  dreary  existence,  a 
constant  struggle  for  a  livelihood.  It  was  the  same  story  as 
Cesar's  own,  with  Cesar's  luck  omitted.  Pillerault  had  re- 
mained an  assistant  till  he  was  thirty  years  old  ;  he  had  em- 
barked his  capital  in  business  at  an  age  when  Cesar  was 
investing  his  savings  in  rentes  ;  then  the  law  of  the  maximum 
had  hit  him  hard,  and  his  pickaxes  and  spades  had  been  req- 
uisitioned. His  taciturn  wisdom,  his  foresight,  and  logical 
clear-headedness  had  had  their  effect  on  his  "ways  of  doing 
business."  His  bargains  were  concluded,  as  a  rule,  by 
word  of  mouth,  and  difficulties  seldom  arose.  Like  most 
meditative  people,  he  was  an  observer  ;  he  said  little,  and 
studied  those  who  talked ;  often  he  had  declined  good  bar- 
gains of  which  his  neighbors  had  availed  themselves,  and  sub- 
sequently repented,  and  vowed  that  Pillerault  could  smell  out 
a  rogue.  He  preferred  sure  gains,  if  of  the  smallest,  to  bold 
strokes  of  business  involving  heavy  sums. 

His  stock  of  hardware  consisted  of  grates,  gridirons,  cast- 
iron  fire-dogs,  boilers,  and  copper  caldrons,  hoes,  and  such 
agricultural  implements  as  laborers  use;  somewhat  unremuner- 
ative  branches  of  a  business  that  involves  continual  drudgery. 
Hardware  is  ponderous,  awkward  to  handle,  and  difficult  to 
store,  and  the  profits  are  not  heavy  in  proportion ;  so  Pillerault 
had  nailed  up  many  a  case,  sent  off  many  packages,  and  un- 
loaded many  vans.  Never  had  a  competence  been  more 
honorably  earned,  more  thoroughly  deserved,  more  to  the 
credit  of  the  man  who  had  made  it.  He  had  never  asked  too 
much,  had  never  run  after  business.  Toward  the  end  of  the 
Ume,  you  might  have  seen  him  smoking  his  pipe  in  the  door- 
way and  watching  his  assistants  at  work.  In  1814,  when  he 
retired,  his  actual  capital  at  first  consisted  of  seventy  thousand 
francs,  which  he  invested  in  Government  stock  that  brought 
him  in  five  thousand  and  some  odd  hundred  francs  a  year, 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  103 

with  a  further  forty  thousand  francs  due  in  five  years'  time, 
when  the  assistant  to  whom  he  had  sold  the  business  was  to 
pay  for  it.  On  this  amount,  meanwhile,  no  interest  was  paid. 
For  thirty  years  he  had  annually  made  seven  per  cent,  on  a 
turnover  of  a  hundred  thousand  francs,  and  had  lived  on  half 
his  income.     Such  was  his  balance-sheet. 

His  neighbors,  but  little  jealous  of  this  by  no  means  brilliant 
success,  extolled  his  wisdom  without  comprehending  it. 

At  the  corner  of  the  Rue  de  la  Monnaie  and  the  Rue  Saint- 
Honore  stands  the  Cafe  David,  where  a  few  retired  trades- 
men, such  as  Pillerault,  congregate  of  an  evening  to  take 
their  coffee.  At  one  time,  Pillerault's  adoption  of  his_ cook's 
son  had  occasioned  a  few  jokes  among  its  frequenters,  such 
jokes  as  are  addressed  to  a  man  looked  up  to  among  his 
fellows,  for  the  hardware  man  received  a  respect  for  which  he 
had  not  sought ;  his  own  self-respect  sufficed  him.  So  when 
Pillerault  lost  the  poor  young  fellow  there  were  more  than 
two  hundred  people  at  the  funeral  who  followed  his  adopted 
child  to  the  grave.  He  behaved  heroically  in  those  days, 
making  no  parade  of  his  grief,  bearing  it  as  a  brave  man 
bears  sorrow.  This  increased  the  sympathy  felt  in  the  quarter 
for  the  "good  man,"  as  they  called  him,  and  the  accent  in 
which  the  words  were  spoken  gave  the  words  a  wider  and 
ennobled  meaning  when  they  applied  to  Pillerault. 

Claude  Pillerault  had  become  so  accustomed  to  the  sober 
even  tenor  of  his  life  that,  when  he  retired  from  business  and 
entered  upon  the  time  of  leisure,  which  hangs  so  heavily  on 
many  a  Parisian  tradesman's  hands,  he  could  not  unbend  and 
divert  himself  with  the  amusements  of  an  idle  life  ;  he  made 
no  change  in  his  housekeeping ;  and  his  old  age  was  enlivened 
by  his  political  opinions,  which,  let  us  admit  it  at  once,  were 
those  of  the  extreme  Left. 

Pillerault  belonged  to  the  artisan  class,  which  the  Revolu- 
tion had  brought  into  cooperation  with  the  small  storekeepers. 
The  one  blot  on  his  character  was  the  importance  which  he 


104  C£SA&  BIROTTEAU. 

attached  to  the  victory  of  his  principles  ;  he  dwelt  fondly  oil 
his  rights,  on  liberty,  on  the  great  results  of  the  Revolution ; 
he  firmly  believed  that  his  political  freedom  and  existence 
were  being  undermined  by  the  Jesuits,  whose  underhand 
power  the  Liberals  discovered,  and  threatened  by  the  ideas 
with  which  the  "  Constitutionnel "  credited  Monsieur  the 
King's  brother.  He  was,  however,  consistent  in  his  life  and 
in  his  ideas ;  there  was  nothing  narrow  in  his  political  views ; 
he  never  abused  his  adversaries,  he  held  courtiers  in  suspicion, 
and  believed  in  Republican  virtues.  He  imagined  that  Manuel 
was  guiltless  of  any  excesses,  that  General  Foy  was  a  great 
man,  and  Casimir  Perier  without  ambition  ;  to  his  thinking, 
Lafayette  was  a  political  prophet,  Courier  a  good  man.  In 
short,  he  beheld  noble  chimerical. visions. 

The  good  man  was  domestic  in  his  habits  ;  he  made  part  of 
the  family  circle  in  which  his  niece  lived — the  Ragons,  Judge 
Popinot,  Joseph  Lebas,  and  the  Matifats.  Fifteen  hundred 
francs  a  year  supplied  his  needs ;  the  rest  of  his  income  was 
spent  in  charitable  deeds  and  in  presents  to  his  grandniece; 
four  times  a  year  he  gave  a  dinner  to  his  friends  at  Roland's 
in  the  Rue  du  Hasard,  and  took  them  afterward  to  the  play. 
He  played  the  part  of  the  old  bachelor  friend  on  whom 
married  women  draw  bills  at  sight  for  their  fancies;  for  a 
country  excursion,  a  party  for  the  opera  or  the  Montagnes- 
Beaujon ;  and  Pillerault  would  be  very  happy  at  such  times  in 
the  pleasure  which  he  was  giving,  and  felt  the  gladness  in  other 
hearts. 

If  Molineux's  character  was  written  at  large  in  his  queer 
furniture,  Pillerault's  pure  heart  and  simple  life  were  no  less 
revealed  by  his  surroundings.  His  abode  consisted  of  a  lobby, 
a  sitting-room,  and  bedroom.  But  for  the  difference  in  size, 
it  might  have  been  a  Carthusian's  cell.  The  lobby,  floored 
with  red  tiles,  which  were  beeswaxed,  boasted  but  one  window, 
hung  with  dimity  curtains  edged  with  scarlet ;  mahogany 
chairs,  with  red  leather  cushions  and  studded  with  brass  nails, 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  105 

stood  against  the  wall,  which  was  covered  with  an  olive-green 
paper,  and  adorned  with  pictures — a  "Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence," a  portrait  of  Bonaparte  as  First  Consul,  and  a 
"  Battle  of  Austerlitz."  The  furniture  of  the  sitting-room, 
doubtless  left  to  the  upholsterer,  was  yellow,  and  covered  with 
a  flowered  pattern ;  there  was  a  carpet  on  the  floor ;  the 
bronze  ornaments  on  the  mantel  were  not  gilded.  There  was 
a  painted  fire-screen  before  the  grate ;  a  vase  of  artificial 
flowers  under  a  glass  shade  stood  on  a  console,  and  a  liqueur 
stand  on  a  round  table  covered  with  a  cloth.  It  was  evident 
from  the  unused  look  of  the  room  that  it  was  a  concession  to 
convention  on  the  part  of  the  retired  hardware  dealer,  who 
rarely  received  visitors. 

His  own  room  was  as  bare  as  that  of  a  monk  or  an  old  sol- 
dier, the  two  men  who  make  the  truest  estimate  of  life.  In  the 
alcove  a  holy-water  stoup  caught  the  eye,  a  profoundly  touch- 
ing confession  of  faith  in  a  Republican  stoic  and  a  strict  anti- 
jesuit. 

An  old  woman  came  in  to  do  the  work  of  the  establishment ; 
but,  so  great  was  Pillerault's  reverence  for  womankind,  that  he 
would  not  allow  her  to  clean  his  shoes  and  made  an  arrange- 
ment with  a  bootblack. 

His  costume  was  plain  and  never  varied.  He  always  wore 
a  coat  and  breeches  of  blue  cloth,  a  cotton  vest,  a  white  cravat, 
and  very  low  walking  shoes ;  and  on  high-days  and  holidays  a 
coat  with  metal  buttons.  He  rose,  breakfasted,  went  out, 
dined,  and  returned  home  when  the  evening  was  over  with  the 
strictest  regularity,  for  a  methodical  life  conduces  to  health 
and  length  of  days.  Cesar,  the  Ragons,  and  the  Abbe  Loraux 
always  avoided  the  subject  of  politics  ;  those  of  his  own  circle 
knew  better  than  to  court  attack  by  trying  to  convert  him. 
Like  his  nephew  and  the  Ragons,  he  put  great  faith  in  Roguin  ; 
for  him  a  notary  of  Paris  was  always  a  being  to  be  venerated 
and  probity  incarnate.  In  the  matter  of  the  building  land, 
Pillerault  had  examined  it  so  thoroughly  that  the  remembrance 


106  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

of  his  investigations  had  given  Cesar  moral  support  in  the 
combat  with  his  wife's  forebodings. 

As  Cesar  climbed  the  seventy-two  steps  of  the  stairs  which 
led  to  the  low,  brown  doorway  of  his  uncle's  rooms,  he  thought 
within  himself  that  the  old  man  must  be  very  hale  to  go  up 
and  down  them  daily  without  a  murmur.  He  found  the  coat 
and  breeches  hanging  on  a  peg  outside,  and  Mme.  Vaillant 
busy  rubbing  and  brushing  them ;  while  the  philosopher  him- 
self, in  his  gray  flannel  dressing-gown,  was  breakfasting  by  the 
fireside,  and  conning  the  reports  of  parliamentary  debates  in 
the  "  Constitutionnel  "  or  the  "  Journal  du  Commerce." 

"The  affair  is  settled,  uncle,"  said  Cesar,  "they  are  just 
about  to  draft  the  documents  ;  but  if  you  have  any  doubts  or 
regret  about  it,  there  is  still  time  to  cry  off." 

"Why  should  I  cry  off?  It  is  a  good  piece  of  business, 
but  it  takes  some  time  to  realize,  like  everything  that  is  safe. 
My  fifty  thousand  francs  are  lying  at  the  bank ;  the  last  install- 
ment of  five  thousand  francs  for  my  business  was  paid  in  yes- 
terday. As  for  the  Ragons,  they  are  putting  all  that  they  have 
into  it." 

"  Why,  how  do  they  live  ?  " 

"Never  mind;  they  live,  at  all  events." 

"  I  understand  you,  uncle,"  said  Birotteau,  deeply  touched, 
and  he  grasped  the  austere  old  man's  hands  tightly  in  his. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  about  this  business?  "  Pillerault 
asked  abruptly. 

"  I  shall  take  three-eighths ;  you  and  the  Ragons  will  take 
an  eighth  between  you  ;  I  shall  credit  you  with  the  amount  in 
my  books  until  they  decide  the  question  of  the  deeds." 

"  Good  !  Are  you  so  very  rich,  my  boy,  that  you  pay  down 
three  hundred  thousand  francs?  It  looks  to  me  as  though  you 
were  risking  a  good  deal  of  money  outside  your  business ; 
won't  the  business  suffer?  After  all,  it  is  your  own  affair.  If 
you  are  pulled  up,  here  are  the  funds  at  ninety ;  I  could  sell 
out  two  thousand  francs  in  consols.     Take  care,  though,  my 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  107 

boy ;  if  you  come  to  me  you  will  be  laying  hands  on  your 
girl's  fortune." 

"  Uncle,  you  say  the  kindest  things  as  if  they  were  a  matter 
of  course  ;   it  goes  to  my  heart  to  hear  you." 

"  General  Foy  touched  me  after  another  fashion  just  now  ! 
There,  at  all  events,  it  is  settled.  The  building  lots  won't 
fly  away  ;  we  shall  have  them  for  half  their  value  ;  and,  even  if 
we  should  have  to  wait  six  years,  there  will  still  be  something 
in  the  way  of  interest ;  lumber  yards  would  pay  rent,  so  we  can- 
not lose.  There  is  only  one  thing,  and  that  is  impossible — 
Roguin  will  not  run  away  with  our  capital " 

"  But  that  is  what  my  wife  said  last  night ;  she  is  afraid " 


"That  Roguin  will  run  off  with  our  money,"  said  Piller- 
ault,  laughing  ;   "  and  why  ?  " 

"Well,  she  says  she  doesn't  like  the  cut  of  his  features; 
and,  like  all  men  who  cannot  have  women,  he  is  frantic 
for " 

An  incredulous  smile  stole  over  Pillerault's  face  ;  he  tore  a 
leaf  out  of  a  little  book,  filled  in  the  amount,  and  signed  his 
name. 

"  Here,  this  is  an  order  on  the  bank  for  a  hundred  thousand 
francs,  for  Ragon's  share  and  mine.  Those  poor  people, 
though,  to  make  up  the  money,  sold  out  their  fifteen  shares  in 
the  Wortschin  mines  to  your  worthless  rogue  of  a  du  Tillet. 
Good  people  in  sore  straits ;  it  goes  to  one's  heart  to  see  it. 
And  such  good  people  they  are,  such  noble  people,  the  flower 
of  the  old-fashioned  bourgeoisie,  in  fact  !  Their  brother  Pop- 
inot.  the  judge,  knows  nothing  about  it  ;  they  are  hiding 
their  affairs  from  him,  lest  they  should  hinder  him  from  giving 
free  course  to  his  benevolence.  People  who  have  worked  as 
I  did  for  thirty  years " 

"  God  grant  that  the  Comagen  Oil  succeeds  !  "  cried  Birot- 
teau,  "  and  I  shall  be  doubly  pleased.  Good-day,  uncle;  you 
are  coming  to  dine  with  us  on  Sunday  with  the  Ragons  and 
Roguin  ;  and   Monsieur  Claparon   is   coming,  for  we  are  all 


108  CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  " 

going  to  sign  the  papers  the  day  after  to-morrow ;  to-morrow 
will  be  Friday,  and  I  don't  want  to  do  bus " 

"  Do  you  really  believe  in  those  superstitions?" 

"  I  shall  never  believe  that  the  day  when  the  Son  of  God 
was  put  to  death  by  men  can  be  a  lucky  day,  uncle.  Why  ? 
— people  stop  all  business  even  on  the  21st  of  January." 

"  Good-by  till  Sunday,"  said  Pillerault  abruptly. 

"  If  it  weren't  for  his  political  opinions,"  said  Birotteau  to 
himself,  as  he  went  downstairs  again,  "  I  do  not  know  where 
they  would  find  his  equal  here  below.  What  are  politics  to 
him?  He  would  get  on  very  nicely  without  thinking  of  them 
at  all.  His  infatuation  shows  that  no  one  is  perfect.  Three 
o'clock  already  !  "  said  Cesar,  as  he  entered  his  store. 

"Are  you  going  to  take  these  bills,  sir?"  asked  Celestin, 
holding  out  the  umbrella-dealer's  collection  of  bills. 

"Yes,  at  six  per  cent.,  no  commission.  Wife,  put  out  all 
my  things  ready  for  me ;  I  am  going  to  call  on  Monsieur 
Vauquelin,  you  know  why.    Above  all  things,  a  white  cravat." 

Birotteau  gave  some  orders  to  his  assistants  ;  he  did  not  see 
Popinot,  guessed  that  his  future  partner  had  gone  to  dress  for 
the  visit,  and  went  up  at  once  to  his  own  room,  where  the 
Dresden  Madonna  met  his  eyes  in  a  magnificent  frame,  ac- 
cording to  his  orders. 

"  Well,  it  looks  fine,  doesn't  it  ?  " 

"Why,  papa,  say  it  is  beautiful,  or  people  will  laugh  at 
you!" 

"  Here  is  a  girl  for  you  that  scolds  her  father  ! Well, 

for  my  own  part,  I  like  '  Hero  and  Leander '  quite  as  much. 
The  '  Madonna '  is  a  religious  subject,  which  could  be  hung 
up  in  an  oratory ;  but  '  Hero  and  Leander  !  '  Ah  !  I  will 
buy  it,  for  the  flask  of  oil  suggested  some  ideas  to  me." 

"  But  I  don't  understand,  papa." 

"  Virginie,  call  a  cab!"  shouted  Cesar,  in  a  voice  that 
rang  through  the  house.  He  had  finished  shaving,  and  the 
shy  Anselme   Popinot    appeared,  dragging   his  feet,  for  he 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  109 

thought  of  Cesarine.  He  had  not  discovered,  as  yet,  that  he 
was  not  lame  in  the  eyes  of  his  lady-love,  a  sweet  proof  of  love, 
which  only  those  to  whom  fate  has  given  some  bodily  defor- 
mity can  receive. 

"The  press  will  be  in  working  order  to-morrow,  sir,"  he 
said. 

"  Very  well.  What  is  the  matter,  Popinot?  "  asked  Cesar, 
seeing  Anselme's  flushed  face. 

"  I  am  so  glad,  sir ;  I  have  found  a  place,  a  front  and  back 
store,  and  a  kitchen,  and  the  rooms  above,  and  a  wareroom, 
all  for  twelve  hundred  francs  a  year,  in  the  Rue  des  Cinq- 
Diamants." 

"  We  must  have  an  eighteen  years'  lease  of  it,"  said  Bi- 
rotteau.  "  But  let  us  go  to  Monsieur  Vauquelin  and  we  can 
talk  on  the  way,"  and  Cesar  and  Popinot  drove  away  under 
the  eyes  of  the  assistants,  who  were  at  a  loss  what  to  think 
of  such  magnificent  attire  and  so  unusual  a  portent  as  a  cab, 
ignorant  as  they  were  of  the  mighty  matters  that  occupied  the 
owner  of  the  Queen  of  Roses. 

"So  we  shall  soon  know  the  truth  about  the  hazelnuts!" 
said  the  perfumer. 

"Hazelnuts?"  queried  Popinot. 

"You  have  my  secret,  Popinot,"  said  the  perfumer;  "I 
let  slip  the  word  '  hazelnuts,'  and  that  tells  everything. 
Hazelnut  oil  is  the  only  oil  which  produces  any  effect  on  the 
hair;  no  other  house  has  thought  of  it.  When  I  saw  the 
print  of  'Hero  and  Leander,'  I  said  to  myself,  '  If  the  an- 
cients put  so  much  oil  on  their  heads,  there  must  have  been 
some  reason  for  it,'  for  the  ancients  are  the  ancients  !  In 
spite  of  modern  pretensions,  I  am  of  Boileau's  opinion  about 
the  ancients.  From  that  I  came  to  the  idea  of  hazelnuts, 
thanks  to  young  Bianchon,  the  medical  student,  your  relative; 
he  told  me  that  the  students  at  the  Ecole  put  hazelnut  oil  on 
their  mustaches  and  whiskers  to  make  them  grow.  All  we 
want  now  is  the  illustrious  Monsieur  Vauquelin's  approval. 


110  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

Enlightened  by  him,  we  shall  not  deceive  the  public.  Only 
just  now  I  was  over  in  the  market  buying  the  raw  material  of 
a  saleswoman  there  ;  and  in  another  moment  I  shall  be  in  the 
presence  of  one  of  the  greatest  scientific  men  in  France  for 
the  quintessence  of  the  matter.  There's  sense  in  proverbs — 
extremes  meet.  Trade  is  the  intermediary  between  vegetable 
products  and  science,  you  see,  my  boy.  Angelique  Ma- 
dou  collects  the  material,  Vauquelin  distills  it,  and  we 
sell  an  essence.  Hazelnuts  are  worth  five  sous  the  pound, 
Monsieur  Vauquelin  will  increase  their  value  a  hundredfold, 
and  we  shall  perhaps  do  a  service  to  humanity ;  for,  if  vanity 
is  a  plague  of  man,  a  good  cosmetic  is  a  benefit." 

The  devout  admiration  with  which  Popinot  listened  to  the 
father  of  his  Cesarine  stimulated  Birotteau's  eloquence;  he 
indulged  in  the  crudest  rhetorical  display  that  a  Philistine's 
brain  can  devise. 

"Be  reverent,  Anselme,"  he  said,  as  they  reached  the 
street  in  which  Vauquelin  lived  ;  "we  are  about  to  enter  the 
sanctuary  of  science.  Put  the  '  Madonna '  in  evidence,  but 
without  making  any  parade  of  it,  on  a  chair  in  the  dining- 
room.  If  only  I  can  manage  to  say  what  I  want  to  say  without 
making  a  muddle  of  it !  "  cried  Birotteau  artlessly.  "Popi- 
not, that  man  produces  a  chemical  effect  on  me,  the  sound  of 
his  voice  makes  me  quite  hot  inside,  and  even  gives  me  a 
slight  colic.  He  is  my  benefactor,  Anselme,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  he  will  be  your  benefactor  too." 

Popinot  turned  cold  at  the  words,  set  down  his  feet  as  if 
he  were  treading  on  eggs,  and  looked  uneasily  around  the 
room. 

M.  Vauquelin  was  in  his  study  when  Birotteau  was  an- 
nounced. The  man  of  science  knew  that  the  perfumer  was 
a  deputy-mayor  and  in  high  favor ;  he  received  his  visitor. 

"  So  you  do  not  forget  me  now  that  you  are  so  high  up  in 
the  world,"  he  said;  "well,  between  a  chemist  and  a  per- 
fumer there  is  but  a  hand's-breadth," 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  Ill 

"  Alas  !  there  is  a  great  distance  between  your  genius  and 
a  plain  man  like  me,  sir ;  and,  as  for  what  you  call  '  being 
high  up  in  the  world,'  it  is  all  owing  to  you,  and  I  shall 
never  forget  it  in  this  world  or  the  next." 

"  Oh  !  in  the  next  we  shall  all  be  equal,  they  say,  cobblers 
and  kings." 

"  That  is  to  say,  those  kings  and  cobblers  who  have  lived 
piously,"  remarked  Birotteau. 

"Is  this  your  son?"  asked  Vauquelin,  looking  at  little 
Popinot,  who  was  beyond  expression  amazed  to  find  nothing 
extraordinary  in  the  study.  He  had  expected  to  see  prodig- 
ious marvels,  giant  engines,  vivified  substances,  and  metals 
flying  about. 

"  No,  sir  ;  but  he  is  a  young  man  in  whom  I  am  very 
much  interested,  and  he  has  come  to  entreat  your  goodness, 
which  is  equal  to  your  talent,  and  is  it  not  infinite?"  re- 
marked Birotteau  diplomatically.  "We  have  come,  after  an 
interval  of  sixteen  years,  to  consult  you  a  second  time  on  a 
matter  of  importance,  concerning  which  I  am  as  ignorant  as 
a  perfumer." 

"  Let  us  hear  about  it.     What  is  it  ?  " 

"  I  know  that  the  subject  of  hair  occupies  your  nights,  and 
that  you  are  devoting  yourself  to  the  analysis  of  the  substance  ! 
While  you  have  been  thinking  for  glory,  I  have  been  thinking, 
too,  for  trade." 

"  Dear  Monsieur  Birotteau,  what  do  you  want  of  me — an 
analysis  of  hair  ?  " 

He  took  up  a  loose  sheet. 

"  I  am  about  to  read  a  paper  before  the  Academie  des 
Sciences,"  he  went  on.  "  Hair  is  composed  of  a  somewhat 
large  proportion  of  mucus,  a  little  colorless  oil,  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  dark-greenish  oil,  and  iron  ;  I  find  a  certain  amount 
of  oxide  of  manganese,  and  of  phosphate  of  lime,  and  traces 
of  carbonate  of  lime,  and  silica  ;  sulphur  enters  largely  into 
its  composition.     The  proportions  in  which  these  different 


112  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

substances  are  present  vary,  and  so  cause  the  different  color- 
ings of  hair.  Red  hair,  for  example,  on  analysis  yields  much 
more  of  the  dark-green  oil  than  the  other  kinds  give." 

Cesar  and  Popinot  opened  their  eyes  ludicrously  wide. 

"  Nine  things,"  cried  Birotteau.  "  What,  are  there  metals 
and  oils  in  hair  ?  It  takes  the  word  of  a  man  like  you,  whom 
I  venerate,  to  make  me  believe  it.  How  extraordinary ! 
God  is  great,  M.  Vauquelin." 

"  Hair  is  produced  by  a  follicular  organ,"  the  great  chemist 
continued  ;  "a  follicle  is  a  sort  of  bag  open  at  both  ends ;  at 
the  one  end  it  is  connected  with  nerves  and  bloodvessels, 
and  the  hair  issues  from  the  other.  According  to  some  of 
our  learned  associates,  one  of  whom  is  Monsieur  de  Blainville, 
the  hair  is  dead  matter  expelled  from  the  sac  or  secreting 
gland,  which  is  full  of  a  pulpy  tissue." 

"  It  is  like  perspiration  in  sticks,  as  you  might  say,"  cried 
Popinot,  for  which  the  perfumer  promptly  kicked  his  shins. 

Vauquelin  smiled  at  Popinot's  notion.  On  this,  "  He  has 
capacity,  hasn't  he?  "  said  Cesar,  looking  at  Popinot.  if  But 
if  hair  is  dead,  to  begin  with,  sir,  you  can't  possibly  restore 
it,  and  it  is  all  over  with  us  !  the  prospectus  is  nonsense  ! 
You  don't  know  how  funny  the  public  is;  you  can't  go  and 
tell  people " 

"  That  there  is  a  rubbish  heap  on  their  heads,"  said  Popi- 
not, trying  to  make  Vauquelin  laugh  again. 

"An  aerial  catacomb,"  returned  the  chemist,  keeping  up 
the  joke. 

"And  the  nuts  that  are  bought!  "  cried  Birotteau,  with  a 
lively  sense  of  the  pecuniary  loss.  "But  why  do  they  sell 
such ?" 

"  Reassure  yourself,"  said  Vauquelin,  smiling.  "  I  see  some 
secret  for  preventing  the  hair  from  falling  out  or  turning  gray 
is  the  matter  in  question.  Listen  ;  here  are  my  conclusions 
after  all  my  researches." 

Popinot  pricked  up  his  ears  at  this  like  a  startled  leveret. 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  113 

"The  blanching  of  the  fibres,  dead  or  alive,  is,  in  my 
opinion,  produced  by  an  interruption  of  the  secretion  of  the 
coloring  matter ;  this  theory  would  explain  the  fact  that  some 
fur-bearing  animals  in  cold  climates  turn  white,  or  some  lighter 
color,  at  the  beginning  of  winter." 

"Hm!  Popinot." 

"It  is  evident,"  Vauquelin  continued,  "that  the  change 
of  color  is  due  to  sudden  change  in  the  temperature  of  the 
circumambient  air " 

"  Circumambient,  Popinot — mind  that !  mind  that !  "  cried 
Cesar. 

"Yes,"  said  Vauquelin,  "  to  alternations  of  cold  or  heat, 
or  to  interior  phenomena,  which  produce  the  same  effect.  So, 
in  all  probability,  headaches  and  other  local  affections  dissi- 
pate the  fluid  or  derange  the  secretions.  The  inside  of  the 
head  is  the  doctors'  province.  As  for  the  outside,  put  on 
your  cosmetics  by  all  means." 

"Well,  sir,"  said  Birotteau,  "now  I  can  breathe  again 
after  what  you  say.  I  thought  of  selling  the  oil  of  hazelnuts, 
remembering  the  use  the  ancients  made  of  oil  for  their  hair ; 
and  the  ancients  are  the  ancients,  I  am  of  Boileau's  opinion. 
Why  did  wrestlers  oil  themselves ?" 

"  Olive  oil  would  do  quite  as  well  as  oil  of  hazelnuts,"  said 
Vauquelin,  who  had  paid  no  attention  to  Birotteau's  remarks. 
"Any  oil  will  do  to  protect  the  hair-bulbs  from  outside  in- 
fluences injurious  to  the  substances  which  it  contains  in  pro- 
cess of  formation ;  in  course  of  deposit,  we  chemists  would 
say.  Perhaps  you  are  right ;  the  essential  oil  of  hazelnuts  is 
an  irritant,  so  Dupuytren  once  told  me.  I  will  try  to  find 
out  the  difference  between  walnut  and  beechnut  oils,  colza, 
olive,  and  so  forth." 

"Then  I  am  not  mistaken,"  Birotteau  exclaimed  triumph- 
antly, "and  a  great  man  bears  me  out  in  my  opinion.  Ma- 
cassar is  done  for !  Macassar,  sir,  is  a  cosmetic  they  give  you, 
that  is,  sell  you,  and  sell  very  dear,  to  make  your  hair  grow." 
8 


114  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"My  dear  Monsieur  Birotteau,"  said  Vauquelin,  "there 
are  not  two  ounces  of  oil  of  Macassar  in  Europe.  Oil  of 
Macassar  produces  not  the  slightest  effect  on  hair.  The 
Malays  will  pay  its  weight  in  gold  for  it,  because  of  its  sup- 
posed preservative  action  on  the  hair,  not  knowing  that  whale 
oil  is  quite  as  good.  No  possible  power  whether  chemical  or 
divine " 

"  Oh  !  divine — do  not  say  that,  Monsieur  Vauquelin." 

"  Why,  my  dear  sir,  God's  first  law  is  conformity  with 
Himself;  without  unity  there  is  no  power " 

"Oh,  looked  at  in  that  way " 

"  No  power  whatever  can  make  the  hair  grow  on  a  bald 
head,  and  you  cannot  dye  white  or  red  hair  without  danger ; 
but  you  will  do  no  harm,  and  there  will  be  no  fraud  in  extol- 
ling your  oil,  and  I  think  that  those  who  use  it  might  preserve 
their  hair." 

"  Do  you  think  that  the  Royal  Academy  of  Science  would 
approve  it?" 

"Oh!  it  is  no  discovery,"  said  M.  Vauquelin.  "And, 
beside,  quacks  have  taken  the  name  of  the  Academy  in  vain 
so  often  that  it  would  not  help  you  at  all.  My  conscience 
will  not  allow  me  to  look  on  oil  of  hazelnuts  as  a  prodigy." 

"What  would  be  the  best  way  of  extracting  it,  by  pressure 
or  by  decoction?"  asked  Birotteau. 

"You  will  obtain  the  most  oil  by  pressure  between  two  hot 
plates ;  but  if  the  plates  are  cold,  it  will  be  of  better  quality. 
It  ought  to  be  applied  to  the  skin  itself,  and  not  rubbed  into 
the  hair,"  continued  Vauquelin  very  good-naturedly,  "  or  the 
effect  will  be  lost." 

"Mind  you  remember  this,  Popinot,"  said  Birotteau,  as 
his  face  flushed  up  with  enthusiasm.  "You  see  in  him,  sir,  a 
young  man  who  will  reckon  this  day  among  the  great  days  of 
his  life.  He  knew  and  revered  you  before  he  had  seen  you. 
Ah  !  we  often  talk  of  you  at  home  ;  a  name  that  is  always  in 
the  heart  comes  often  to  the  lips.     We  pray  every  day  for 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  115 

you,  my  wife  and  daughter  and  I,  as  we  ought  to  do  for  our 
benefactor. ' ' 

"It  is  too  much  for  so  little,"  said  Vauquelin,  embarrassed 
by  the  perfumer's  voluble  gratitude. 

"  Tut,  tut,  tut !  "  said  Birotteau.  "You  cannot  hinder  us 
from  loving  you,  you  who  will  accept  nothing  from  me.  You 
are  like  the  sun  ;  you  shed  light  around  you,  and  those  on 
whom  it  shines  can  do  nothing  for  you  in  return." 

The  man  of  science  rose,  smiling,  to  his  feet ;  Birotte&a 
and  Anselme  Popinot  rose  also. 

"  Look  around,  Anselme;  take  a  good  look  at  this  study. 
If  you  will  allow  him,  sir  ?  Your  time  is  so  valuable,  perhaps 
he  will  never  come  here  again." 

"Well,  are  you  satisfied  with  your  business*  ''  asked 
Vauquelin,  turning  to  Birotteau;  "for,  after  all,  we  are  both 
of  us  men  of  business " 

"  Pretty  well,  sir,"  said  Birotteau,  going  toward  the  dining- 
room,  whither  Vauquelin  followed  him;  "but  it  will  take  a 
great  deal  of  capital  to  start  this  oil  under  the  name  of 
Comagen  Essence " 

"  '  Essence  '  and  '  Comagen '  are  two  words  that  clash. 
Call  your  cosmetic  Birotteau's  Oil ;   or,  if  you  have  no  mind 

to  blaze  your  name  abroad,  take  another Why,  there  is 

the  Dresden    Madonna Ah  !    Monsieur   Birotteau,   you 

mean  us  to  fall  out  at  parting." 

"  Monsieur  Vauquelin,"  said  the  perfumer,  taking  both  the 
chemist's  hands  in  his.  "  the  scarce  print  has  no  value  save 
for  the  persistent  efforts  which  I  have  made  to  find  it ;  all 
Germany  has  been  ransacked  for  a  proof  before  letters  on 
India  paper;  I  knew  you  wished  to  have  it,  you  were  too 
busy  to  procure  it  yourself,  so  I  have  taken  it  upon  myself 
to  be  your  agent.  Please  accept,  not  a  paltry  print,  but  the 
earnest  efforts,  the  care,  and  pains  which  prove  a  boundless 
devotion.  I  should  have  been  glad  if  you  had  wanted  some 
substances  that  could  only  be  found  in  the  depths  of  an  abyss, 


116  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

that  I  might  come  to  tell  you,  '  Here  they  are  !  •  We  have 
so  many  chances  to  be  forgotten,  ret  me  put  myself,  my 
wife,  and  daughter,  and  the  son-in-law  whom  I  shall  have  one 
day,  all  before  your  eyes  ;  and  say  to  yourself  when  you  see 
the  Madonna,  '  There  are  honest  folk  who  think  of  me.'  " 

"I  accept  it,"  said  Vauquelin. 

Popinot  and  Birotteau  wiped  their  eyes,  so  much  moved 
were  they  by  the  kind  tone  in  which  the  chemist  spoke. 

"Will  you  carry  your  kindness  yet  further?"  asked  the 
perfumer.   . 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Vauquelin. 

"  I  am  inviting  a  few  of  my  friends — (here  he  raised  him- 
self on  tiptoe,  but  his  face  assumed  a  humble  expression) — 
partly  to  celebrate  the  liberation  of  the  soil,  and  partly  on  the 
occasion  of  my  own  promotion  to  the  Legion  of  Honor." 

"Aha  !  "  said  Vauquelin  in  astonishment. 

"  It  may  be  that  I  have  shown  myself  worthy  of  this  signal 
mark  of  royal  favor  by  discharging  my  functions  at  the  Con- 
sular Tribunal  and  by  fighting  for  the  Bourbons  on  the  steps 
of  Saint-Roch's  church  on  the  13th  of  Vendemiaire,  when  1 
was  wounded  by  Napoleon.  My  wife  is  giving  a  ball  on  Sun- 
day in  twenty  days'  time;  will  you  come  to  it,  sir?  Do  us 
the  honor  of  dining  with  us  on  that  day ;  and,  for  my  own 
part,  it  will  be  as  if  they  had  given  me  the  cross  twice.  I 
will  write  to  you  in  good  time." 

"Very  well,  yes,"  said  Vauquelin. 

"  My  heart  is  swelling  with  pleasure,"  cried  the  perfumer 
when  they  were  in  the  street.  "  He  will  come  to  my  house  ! 
lam  afraid  that  I  have  forgotten  what  he  said  about  hair;  do 
you  remember  it,  Popinot  ?  " 

"Yes,  sir,  and  in  twenty  years'  time  I  shall  still  remember 
it." 

"A  great  man,  that  he  is  !  What  insight  and  what  penetra- 
tion !  "  exclaimed  Birotteau.  "  He  went  straight  to  the 
point,  he  read  our  thoughts  at  once,  and  showed  us  ho\v  to 


CESAR  BIROTTEAW.  117 

make  a  clean  sweep  of  Macassar  Oil.  Ah  !  nothing  can  make 
hair  grow,  Macassar,  so  that  is  a  lie  !  Popinot,  there  is  a 
fortune  within  our  grasp.  So  let  us  be  at  the  factory  by  seven 
o'clock  to-morrow  morning,  the  nuts  will  come  in,  and  we 
will  make  the  oil.  There  is  no  use  in  his  saying  that  any  oil 
will  do  ;  it  would  be  all  over  with  us  if  the  public  knew  that. 
If  there  were  not  a  little  hazelnut  oil  and  scent  in  this  compo- 
sition of  ours,  what  excuse  should  we  have  for  selling  it  at 
three  or  four  francs  for  as  many  ounces?  " 

"And  you  are  to  be  decorated,  sir?  "  said  Popinot.  "  What 
glory  for " 

"  For  commerce,  isn't  it,  my  boy  ?  " 

Cesar  Birotteau,  sure  of  a  fortune,  looked  so  triumphant 
that  the  assistants  noticed  his  expression  and  made  signs  to 
each  other  ;  for  the  appearance  of  a  cab,  and  the  fact  that 
their  employer  and  his  cashier  had  changed  their  clothes,  had 
given  rise  to  the  wildest  imaginings.  The  very  evident  satis- 
faction of  the  pair,  revealed  by  the  diplomatic  glances  ex- 
changed between  them,  and  the  hopeful  eyes  that  Popinot 
turned  once  or  twice  on  Cesarine,  announced  that  some  im- 
portant event  was  imminent,  and  confirmed  the  assistants' 
suspicions.  The  smallest  chance  events  in  their  busy  and 
almost  monastic  lives  were  as  interesting  to  them  as  to  any 
prisoner  in  solitary  confinement.  Mme.  Cesar's  face  (for  she 
responded  doubtfully  to  the  Olympian  looks  her  husband 
turned  on  her)  portended  some  new  development  in  the  busi- 
ness, for  at  any  other  time  Mme.  Cesar  would  have  been 
serenely  content — Mme.  Cesar,  who  was  so  blithe  over  a 
good  day,  and  to-day  the  takings  had  amounted  to  the  extra- 
ordinary sum  of  six  thousand  francs ;  some  old  outstanding 
accounts  had  been  paid. 

The  dining-room  and  the  kitchen  were  both  on  the  mez- 
zanine floor,  where  Cesar  and  Constance  had  lived  during  the 
first  years  of  their  married  life.  This  dining-room,  where 
their  honeymoon  had  been  spent,  looked  like  a  little  drawing- 


118  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

room.  The  kitchen  windows  looked  out  into  a  little  yard ;  a 
passage  separated  the  two  rooms  and  gave  access  to  the  stair- 
case, contrived  in  a  corner  of  the  back-shop. 

Raguet,  the  errand  boy,  looked  after  the  store  while  they 
sat  at  dinner ;  but,  when  dessert  appeared,  the  assistants  went 
downstairs  again  and  left  Cesar  and  his  wife  and  daughter  to 
finish  their  meal  by  the  fireside.  This  tradition  had  been 
handed  down  from  the  days  of  the  Ragons,  who  had  kept  up 
all  the  old-fashioned  customs  and  usages  in  full  vigor,  and  set 
the  same  enormous  distance  between  themselves  and  the  as- 
sistants that  formerly  existed  between  masters  and  apprentices. 
Cesarine  or  Constance  would  then  prepare  the  cup  of  coffee, 
which  the  perfumer  took  in  a  low  chair  by  the  fire.  It  was 
the  hour  when  Cesar  told  his  wife  all  the  small  news  of  the 
day  ;  he  would  tell  her  anything  that  he  had  seen  in  Paris,  or 
what  they  were  doing  in  the  Faubourg  du  Temple,  and  about 
the  difficulties  that  arose  there. 

"This  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  memorable  days  in  our 
lives,  wife  !  "  he  began,  when  the  assistants  had  gone  down- 
stairs. "The  hazelnuts  have  been  bought,  the  hydraulic  press 
will  be  ready  for  work  to-morrow,  the  matter  of  the  building 
lands  has  been  concluded.  And,  while  I  think  of  it,  just  put 
away  this  order  on  the  bank,"  he  went  on,  handing  over  to 
her  Pillerault's  draft.  "  The  redecoration  of  the  rooms,  our 
new  rooms,  has  been  settled.  Dear  me  !  I  saw  a  very  queer 
man  to-day  in  the  Cour  Batave  !  " 

And  he  told  the  women  about  M.  Molineux. 

"I  see,"  his  wife  broke  in,  in  the  middle  of  a  tirade, 
"that  you  will  have  to  pay  two  hundred  thousand  francs  !  " 

"  True,  my  wife,"  said  the  perfumer,  with  mock  humility. 
"  Good  Lord  !  and  how  are  we  to  pay  it  ?  for  the  building 
lands  near  the  Madeleine,  that  will  be  the  finest  quarter  of 
Paris  some  day,  must  be  taken  as  worth  nothing." 

"  Some  day,  Cesar." 

"Dear,  dear  !  "  he  continued  his  joke — "  my  three-eighths 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  119 

will  only  be  worth  a  million  in  six  years'  time.  And  how 
shall  we  pay  two  hundred  thousand  francs?"  asked  Cesar, 
making  as  though  he  were  aghast.  "  Well,  we  will  pay  it 
with  this,"  and  he  drew  from  his  pocket  one  of  Mme. 
Madou's  hazelnuts,  which  he  had  carefully  kept. 

He  held  it  up  between  his  thumb  and  finger.  Constance 
said  nothing;  but  Cesarine,  whose  curiosity  was  tickled, 
brought  her  father  his  cup  of  coffee  with  a  "  Come,  now, 
papa,  are  you  joking?  " 

The  perfumer,  like  his  assistants,  had  noticed  the  glances 
Popinot  had  given  Cesarine  during  dinner  ;  he  meant  to  clear 
up  his  suspicions. 

"  Well,  little  girl,  this  hazelnut  is  to  work  a  revolution  in 
the  house.  There  will  be  one  less  under  our  roof  after  to- 
night." 

Cesarine  looked  straight  at  her  father,  as  who  should  say, 
"What  is  that  to  me?" 

"  Popinot  is  going  away." 

Although  Cesar  was  a  poor  observer,  although  his  remark 
had  been  meant  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  announcement  of 
the  new  firm  of  A.  Popinot  and  Company,  as  well  as  for  a 
trap  for  his  daughter,  his  father's  tenderness  told  him  the 
secret  of  the  vague  emotions  which  sprang  up  in  the  girl's 
heart,  and  blossomed  in  red  upon  her  cheek  and  brow,  bright- 
ening her  eyes  before  they  fell.  Cesar  thought  at  once  that 
some  word  had  been  exchanged  between  Cesarine  and  Popi- 
not. Nothing  of  the  kind  had  happened  ;  the  boy  and  girl 
understood  each  other,  after  the  fashion  of  shy  young  lovers, 
without  a  word. 

There  are  moralists  who  hold  that  love  is  the  most  involun- 
tary, the  most  disinterested  and  least  calculating  of  all  passions, 
a  mother's  love  always  excepted,  a  doctrine  which  contains  a 
gross  error.  The  larger  part  of  mankind  may  be  ignorant  of 
their  motives  ;  but  any  sympathy,  physical  or  mental,  is  none 
the  less  based  upon  calculations  made  by  brain  or  heart  or 

E 


120  CASAR  B1ROTTEAU. 

animal  instincts.  Love  is  essentially  an  egoistical  affection, 
and  egoism  implies  profound  calculation.  For  the  order  of 
mind  which  is  only  impressed  by  outward  and  visible  results, 
it  may  seem  an  improbable  or  unusual  thing  that  a  poor,  lame, 
red-haired  lad  should  find  favor  in  the  eyes  of  a  beautiful 
girl  like  Cesarine ;  and  yet  it  was  only  what  might  be  ex- 
pected from  the  workings  of  the  bourgeois  mind  in  matters 
of  sentiment.  The  explanation  would  account  for  other 
marriages  that  are  a  constant  source  of  amazement  to  on- 
lookers, between  tall  or  beautiful  women  and  insignificant 
men,  or  when  some  well-grown  stripling  marries  some  ugly 
little  creature. 

For  a  man  afflicted  with  any  physical  deformity,  be  it  a 
club-foot,  lameness,  a  hunch-back,  excessive  ugliness,  spot, 
blemish,  or  disfigurement,  Roguin's  infirmity,  or  other  anom- 
alous affection  for  which  his  progenitors  are  not  responsible, 
there  are  but  two  courses  open  :  he  must  either  make  himself 
feared  or  cultivate  an  exquisite  goodness — he  cannot  afford  to 
steer  an  undecided  middle  course  between  the  two  extremes 
like  the  rest  of  humanity.  The  first  alternative  requires  talent, 
genius,  or  force  of  character ;  for  a  man  can  only  inspire 
terror  by  his  power  to  do  harm,  impose  respect  by  his  genius, 
or  compel  fear  by  his  prodigious  wit.  In  the  second  he 
studies  to  be  adored  ;  he  lends  himself- admirably  to  feminine 
tyranny,  and  is  wiser  in  love  than  others  of  irreproachable 
physical  proportions. 

Anselme  Popinet  had  been  brought  up  by  the  good  Ra- 
gons,  upright  citizens  of  the  best  type,  and  by  his  uncle 
the  judge — a  course  of  training  which,  with  his  ingenuous 
and  religious  nature,  had  led  him  to  redeem  his  slight  defor- 
mity by  the  perfection  of  his  character.  Constance  and 
Cesar,  struck  by  a  disposition  which  makes  youth  so  attract- 
ive, had  often  praised  Anselme  in  Cesarine' s  hearing.  With 
all  their  narrowness  in  other  respects,  this  storekeeper  and  his 
wife  possessed  nobility  of  soul,  and  hearts  that  were  quick  to 


C£SAR  BIROTTEAU.  121 

comprehend.  Their  praises  found  an  echo  in  the  girl's  own 
heart;  in  spite  of  her  inexperience  she  read  in  Anselme's 
frank  eyes  a  passion  that  is  always  flattering,  no  matter  what 
the  age,  rank,  or  figure  of  the  lover  may  be. 

Little  Popinot,  not  being  a  well-shaped  man,  had  all  the 
more  reasons  for  loving  a  woman.  Should  she  be  fair,  he 
would  be  her  lover  till  his  dying  day ;  love  would  give  him 
ambition  ;  he  would  work  himself  to  death  to  make  his  wife 
happy;  he  would  suffer  her  to  be  the  sovereign  mistress  of 
his  home ;  and  her  empire  over  him  would  be  without  change 
and  boundless. 

This,  crudely  stated,  is  perhaps  what  Cesarine  thought,  un- 
consciously within  herself;  she  had  had  a  bird's-eye  glimpse 
of  the  harvests  of  love,  and  she  had  drawn  her  own  infer- 
ences; her  mother's  happiness  was  under  her  eyes,  she  wished 
no  other  life  for  herself;  instinctively  she  discerned  in  An- 
selme  another  Cesar,  polished  by  education,  as  she  herself 
had  been.  In  her  dreams,  Popinot  was  the  mayor  of  an 
arrondissement,  and  she  liked  to  imagine  herself  asking  for 
subscriptions  to  charities  in  her  district,  as  her  own  mother 
did  in  the  parish  of  Saint-Roch.  And  so  at  length  she  forgot 
that  one  of  Popinot's  legs  was  shorter  than  the  other,  and 
would  have  been  quite  capable  of  asking,  "  Does  he  really 
limp?  "  She  liked  the  clear  eyes;  she  liked  to  see  the  change 
that  came  over  them  when,  at  a  glance  from  her,  they  lighted 
up  at  once  with  a  flash  of  timid  love,  and  then  fell  despond- 
ently again. 

Roguin's  head  clerk,  Alexandre  Crottat,  gifted  with  a  pre- 
cocious knowledge  of  the  world,  acquired  by  professional 
experience,  disgusted  Cesarine  with  his  half-cynical,  half- 
good-natured  air,  after  putting  her  out  of  patience  with  his 
commonplace  talk.  Popinot's  silence  revealed  a  gentle  na- 
ture ;  she  liked  to  watch  the  half-sad  smile  with  which  he 
endured  meaningless  trivialities ;  the  babble  which  made  him 


122  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

smile  always  roused  a  feeling  of  annoyance  in  her;  they 
smiled  or  looked  condolence  at  each  other. 

Anselme's  mental  superiority  did  not  prevent  him  from 
working  hard  with  his  hands ;  the  way  in  which  he  threw 
himself  into  everything  that  he  did  also  pleased  Cesarine  ; 
she  guessed  that  while  all  the  other  assistants  said,  ',.'  Cesarine 
is  going  to  be  married  to  Monsieur  Roguin's  head  clerk," 
Anselme,  lame  and  poor  and  red-haired,  did  not  despair  of 
winning  her.  The  strength  of  a  hope  proves  the  strength  of 
a  love. 

"  Where  is  he  going?"  Cesarine  asked,  trying  to  look  in- 
different. 

"He  is  going  to  set  up  for  himself  in  the  Rue  des  Cinq- 

Diamants  !     And,  upon  my  word,  by  the  grace  of  God  ! " 

But  neither  his  wife  nor  daughter  understood  the  ejaculation. 
When  Birotteau's  mind  encountered  any  difficulty,  he  behaved 
like  an  insect  that  encounters  an  obstacle,  he  swerved  to  left 
or  right ;  so  now  he  changed  the  subject,  promising  himself  to 
speak  of  Cesarine  to  his  wife. 

"  I  told  uncle  your  notions  about  Roguin  and  your  fears; 
he  began  to  laugh,"  he  went  on,  addressing  Constance. 

"  You  ought  never  to  repeat  things  that  we  say  between 
ourselves,"  she  cried.  "Poor  Roguin  !  he  may  be  the  most 
honest  man  in  the  world ;  he  is  fifty-eight  years  old,  and  I 
expect  he  no  more  thinks " 

She  too  broke  off;  she  saw  that  Cesarine  was  listening,  and 
warned  Cesar  of  that  fact  by  a  glance. 

"  So  I  did  well  to  strike  the  bargain." 

"Why,  you  are  the  master,"  returned  she. 

Cesar  took  both  his  wife's  hands  in  his  and  kissed  her  on 
the  forehead.  That  answer  had  always  been  her  passive  form 
of  assent  to  her  husband's  projects.  And,  with  that,  Birotteau 
went  downstairs  into  the  store. 

"Come!"  he  cried,  speaking  to  the  assistants,  "we  will 
put  up  the  shutters  at  ten  o'clock.     We  must  do  a  stroke  of 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  123 

work,  gentlemen  !  We  must  set  about  moving  all  the  furni- 
ture from  the  second  floor  to  the  third  to-night  !  We  shall 
have  to  put  the  little  pots  into  the  big  ones,  as  the  saying  is, 
so  as  to  give  my  architect  elbow-room  to-morrow.  Popinot 
has  gone  out  without  leave,"  said  Cesar,  looking  round. 
"  Oh  !  I  forgot,  he  does  not  sleep  here.  He  has  gone  to  see 
about  the  store,  or  else  he  is  putting  down  Monsieur  Vauque- 
lin's  ideas,"  he  thought. 

"We  know  why  the  furniture  is  being  moved,  sir,"  said 
Celestin,  spokesman  for  the  two  assistants  and  Raguet,  who 
stood  by  him.  "  May  we  be  allowed  to  congratulate  you  on 
an  honor  which  reflects  glory  on  the  whole  establishment  ? 
Popinot  told  us " 

"Well,  boys,  it  can't  be  helped;  I  have  been  decorated. 
So  we  are  inviting  a  few  friends,  partly  to  celebrate  the  libera- 
tion of  the  soil  and  partly  on  the  occasion  of  my  own  promo- 
tion to  the  Legion  of  Honor.  It  may  be  that  I  have  shown 
myself  worthy  of  this  signal  mark  of  royal  favor  by  the  dis- 
charge of  my  functions  at  the  Consular  Tribunal  and  by 
fighting  for  the  Royalist  cause — when  I  was  your  age — on  the 
steps  of  Saint-Roch,  on  the  13th  of  Vendemiaire  ;  and,  on 
my  word,  Napoleon  the  Emperor,  as  they  called  him,  gave 
me  my  wound.  For  I  was  wounded,  and  on  the  thigh,  what 
is  more,  and  Madame  Ragon  nursed  me.  Be  brave,  and  you 
will  be  rewarded  !  So  there,  you  see,  my  children,  that  a 
mishap  is  never  all  loss." 

"  People  don't  fight  in  the  streets  nowadays,"  said  Celestin. 

"Well,  we  must  hope,"  said  Cesar,  and  thereupon  he  took 
occasion  to  read  his  assistants  a  little  homily,  which  he 
rounded  off  with  an  invitation. 

The  prospect  of  a  dance  put  new  life  into  the  three  assist- 
ants ;  under  the  stimulus  of  the  excitement,  the  three,  with 
Virginie  and  Raguet,  performed  acrobatic  feats.  They  came 
and  went  up  and  down  the  stairs  with  their  loads,  and  nothing 
was  broken,  nothing  was  upset.     By  two  o'clock  in  the  morn- 


124  C£SA£  BIROTTEAU. 

ing  the  removal  was  accomplished ;  Cesar  and  his  wife  slept 
on  the  third  floor,  Celestin  and  the  second  assistant  occupied 
Popinot's  room.  The  fourth  floor  was  converted,  for  the  time 
being,  into  a  furniture  warehouse. 

When  the  assistants  had  gone  down  into  the  shop  after  din- 
ner, Popinot,  usually  so  quiet  and  equable,  had  been  as  fidgety 
as  a  race-horse  just  arrived  upon  the  course.  A  burning  desire 
to  do  something  great  was  upon  him,  induced  by  a  super- 
abundance of  nervous  fluid,  which  turns  the  diaphragm  of  the 
lover  or  the  man  of  restless  ambition  into  a  furnace. 

"  What  can  be  the  matter  with  you  ?  "  Celestin  had  asked. 

•'What  a  day!  I  am  setting  up  for  myself,  my  dear  fel- 
low," he  whispered  in  Celestin's  ear,  "and  Monsieur _Cesar  is 
to  be  decorated." 

"You  are  very  lucky;  the  governor  is  helping  you,"  ex- 
claimed the  assistant. 

Popinot  gave  him  no  answer  ;  he  vanished,  whirled  away 
by  the  wind — the  wind  of  success. 

"  Oh,  as  to  lucky  !  "  said  an  assistant,  as  he  sorted  gloves 
in  dozens,  to  his  neighbor,  who  was  busy  checking  the  prices 
on  the  tickets.  "  The  governor  has  seen  the  eyes  that  Popinot 
has  been  making  at  Mademoiselle  Cesarine  ;  he  is  a  shrewd 
one,  the  governor,  so  he  is  getting  rid  of  Anselme  ;  it  would 
be  difficult  to  refuse  outright,  because  of  the  relatives.  Celes- 
tin takes  the  trick  by  this  generosity." 

Anselme  Popinot  meanwhile  had  turned  down  the  Rue 
Saint-Honore  and  hurried  along  the  Rue  des  Deux-Ecus  to 
secure  some  one  in  whom  his  commercial  second-sight  beheld 
the  principal  instrument  of  success.  Judge  Popinot  had  once 
done  a  service  to  this  young  man,  the  cleverest  commercial 
traveler  in  Paris,  whose  activity  and  triumphant  gift  of  the  gab 
was  to  earn  for  him  at  a  later  day  the  title  of  "  The  Illustrious." 
At  this  time  the  great  commercial  traveler  was  devoting  his 
energies  to  the  hat-trade  and  the  "  fancy-goods  line;"  he  was 
simply  Gaudissart  as  yet,  without  the  prefix,  but  at  the  age  of 


CJESAR  BIROTTEAU.  125 

twenty-two  he  had  already  distinguished  himself;  his  magnetic 
influence  upon  customers  was  beginning  to  be  recognized. 
He  was  thin  and  bright-eyed  at  that  time ;  he  had  an  elo- 
quent face,  an  indefatigable  memory,  a  quick  perception  of 
the  taste  of  those  with  whom  he  came  in  contact ;  he  deserved 
to  be,  what  he  afterward  became — the  king  of  commercial 
travelers,  the  Frenchman  par  excellence. 

Popinot  had  come  across  Gaudissart  some  days  previously, 
and  the  latter  had  announced  that  he  was  about  to  go  on  a 
journey ;  the  hope  of  finding  him  still  in  Paris  had  sent 
Popinot  flying  down  the  Rue  des  Deux-Ecus.  At  the  coach- 
office  he  learned  that  the  commercial  traveler  had  taken  his 
place.  Gaudissart's  leave-taking  of  his  beloved  city  had  taken 
the  shape  of  an  evening  at  the  Vaudeville,  where  there  was  a 
new  play.  Popinot  resolved  to  wait  for  him.  To  confide 
the  agency  of  the  hazelnut  oil  to  this  invaluable  launcher  of 
commercial  enterprise,  already  courted  and  cherished  by  the 
best  houses,  was  exactly  like  drawing  a  bill  of  exchange  on 
fortune  ! 

Popinot  had  claims  on  Gaudissart.  The  commercial  trav- 
eler, so  skilled  in  the  art  of  entangling  that  forward  race,  the 
petty  country  storekeepers,  in  his  toils,  had  once  allowed 
himself  to  become  entangled  in  a  political  web,  in  the  first 
conspiracy  against  the  Bourbons  after  the  Hundred  Days; 
and  Gaudissart,  to  whom  open  air  was  a  vital  necessity,  found 
himself  in  prison  with  a  capital  charge  hanging  over  him. 
Judge  Popinot,  the  examining  magistrate,  saw  that  it  was  a 
piece  of  youthful  folly  that  implicated  Gaudissart  in  the  affair, 
and  set  him  at  liberty ;  but  if  the  young  man  had  chanced 
upon  a  magistrate  eager  to  commend  himself  to  the  authori- 
ties, or  upon  a  rabid  Royalist,  the  luckless  pioneer  of  com- 
merce might  have  mounted  the  scaffold.  Gaudissart,  who 
knew  that  he  owed  his  life  to  the  judge,  was  in  despair,  be- 
cause a  barren  gratitude  was  all  the  return  he  could  make ; 
and,  as  it  was  impossible  to  thank  a  judge  for  doing  justice/ 


126  CAsAR  BIROTTEAU. 

he  had  betaken  himself  to  the  Ragons,  and  there  sworn  fealty 
to  the  family  of  Popinot. 

While  Popinot  waited  he  naturally  spent  the  time  in  going 
to  see  his  store  in  the  Rue  des  Cinq-Diamants  once  more. 
He  asked  for  the  landlord's  address,  so  as  to  come  to  terms 
with  him  about  the  lease.  Then,  wandering  through  the 
murky  labyrinth  about  the  Great  Market,  with  his  thoughts 
full  of  ways  and  means  of  making  a  rapid  fortune,  Popinot 
came  into  the  Rue  Aubry-le-Boucher,  and  there  met  with  a 
wonderful  and  auspicious  opportunity,  with  which  Cesar's 
heart  should  be  gladdened  on  the  morrow.  Then  he  took  up 
his  post  at  the  door  of  the  Hotel  du  Commerce,  at  the  end  of 
the  Rue  des  Deux-Ecus ;  and  toward  midnight  heard,  afar  off, 
a  voice  uplifted  in  the  Rue  de  Grenelle ;  it  was  Gaudissart 
singing  a  bit  of  the  last  song  in  the  piece,  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  the  sound  of  a  walking-stick,  trailed  with  expression 
upon  the  pavement. 

"  Sir,"  cried  Anselme,  suddenly  emerging  from  the  door- 
way, "  can  I  have  a  couple  of  words  with  you?  " 

"  Eleven,  if  you  like,"  said  the  other,  raising  a  loaded  cane. 

"  I  am  Popinot,"  said  poor  Anselme. 

"  Right,"  said  Gaudissart,  recognizing  his  friend.  "  What 
do  you  want?  Money?  Absent  on  leave,  but  there  is  some 
somewhere.  An  arm  for  a  duel  ?  I  am  at  your  service  from 
heel  to  head. 

"  •  You  see  him  where  he  stands — ■ 
Every  inch  a  Frenchman  and  a  soldier ! ' " 

"  Come  and  have  ten  minutes'  talk  with  me,  not  in  your 

room,  we  might  be  overheard,  but  on  the  Quai  de  l'Horloge ; 

there  is  nobody  there  at  this  time  of  night,"  said  Popinot, 

"  it  is  a  question  of  the  greatest  importance." 
"  You  are  in  a  hurry,  are  you  ?     Come  along  !  " 
Ten  minutes  later,   Gaudissart,   now  put  in    possession  of 

Popinot's  secrets,  recognized  the  importance  of  the  matter- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  127 

"Approach,  ye  hairdressers  and  retail  perfumers,"  cried 
Gaudissart,  mimicking  Lafon  in  the  Cid.  "  I  will  get  hold 
of  all  the  perfumers  of  France  and  Navarre.  Oh  !  I  have  it ! 
I  was  going  away,  but  I  shall  stop  here  now  and  take  agencies 
from  the  Parisian  perfumery  trade." 

"Why?" 

"  To  choke  off  your  competitors,  innocent !  By  taking  on 
their  agencies,  I  can  make  their  perfidious  cosmetics  drink  to 
their  own  confusion  in  your  oil,  for  I  shall  talk  of  nothing 
else  and  push  no  other  kind.  A  fine  commercial  traveler's 
dodge!  Aha!  we  are  the  diplomatists  of  commerce.  Fa- 
mous !  As  for  your  prospectus,  I  will  see  to  it.  I  have  known 
Andoche  Finot  since  we  were  boys ;  his  father  is  a  hatter  in  the 
Rue  du  Coq,  the  old  fellow  started  me ;  it  was  through  him 
that  I  began  to  travel  in  the  hat  line.  Andoche  is  a  very 
clever  fellow ;  he  has  the  cleverness  of  all  the  heads  that  his 
father  ever  fitted  with  hats.  He  is  in  the  literary  line ;  he 
does  the  minor  theatres  for  the  '  Courrier  des  Spectacles.' 
His  father,  an  old  fox,  has  abundant  reason  for  not  liking 
cleverness;  he  doesn't  believe  in  cleverness  ;  it  is  impossible 
to  make  him  see  that  cleverness  will  sell,  and  that  a  young  man 
of  spirit  can  make  a  fortune  by  his  wits;  indeed,  as  to  spirit, 
the  only  spirit  he  approves  of  is  proof-spirit.  Old  Finot  is 
reducing  young  Finot  by  famine.  Andoche  can  do  anything, 
and  he  is  my  friend,  moreover,  and  I  don't  rub  against  fools 
(except  in  the  way  of  business).  Finot  does  mottoes  for  the 
'Fidele  Berger,'  which  pays  him,  while  the  newspapers,  for 
which  he  works  like  a  galley-slave,  snub  him  right  and  left. 
How  jealous  they  are  in  that  line  !  It  is  just  like  it  is  in  the 
fancy  article  trade. 

"  Finot  wrote  a  splendid  one-act  comedy  for  Mademoiselle 
Mars,  the  greatest  of  the  great.  (Ah  !  there's  a  woman  that  I 
admire  !)  Well,  and  to  see  it  put  on  the  stage  at  all,  he  had 
to  take  it  to  the  Gaite\  Andoche  understands  prospectuses  ; 
he  enters  into  a  man's  ideas  about  business,  he  is  not  proud, 


128  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

he  will  block  out  our  prospectus  gratis.  Goodness  !  we  will 
treat  him  to  a  bowl  of  punch  and  little  cakes;  for  no  non- 
sense, Popinot ;  I  will  travel  for  you  without  commission  or 
expenses;  your  competitors  shall  pay  me,  I  will  bamboozle 
them.  Let  us  understand  each  other  clearly.  The  success 
of  this  thing  is  a  point  of  honor  with  me ;  my  reward  shall 
be  to  be  best-man  at  your  wedding  !  I  will  go  to  Italy, 
Germany,  and  England  !  I  will  take  placards  in  every  lan- 
guage with  me  and  have  them  posted  up  everywhere,  in  the 
villages,  at  church-doors,  and  in  all  good  situations  that  I 
know  in  country  towns !  The  oil  shall  make  a  blaze ;  it 
shall  be  on  every  head  !  Ah  !  your  marriage  will  not  be  a 
marriage  in  water-colors  ;  it  shall  be  done  in  oils  !  You  shall 
have  your  Cesarine,  or  I  am  not  'The  Illustrious,'  a  nickname 
old  Finot  gave  me  because  I  made  a  success  of  his  gray  hats. 
I  shall  be  sticking  to  my  own  line,  too,  the  human  head ;  oil 
and  hats,  as  is  well  known,  are  meant  to  preserve  the  hair  of 
the  public." 

Popinot  went  to  his  aunt's  house,  where  he  was  to  spend 
the  night,  in  such  a  fever,  brought  on  by  visions  of  success, 
that  the  streets  seemed  to  him  to  be  rivers  of  oil.  He  scarcely 
slept  at  all,  dreamed  that  his  hair  was  growing  at  a  furioua 
rate,  and  beheld  two  angels,  who  unrolled  above  his  head  a 
scroll  (as  in  a  pantomime),  whereon  the  words  "  Cesarian 
Oil "  were  written ;  and  he  awoke,  but  remembered  his 
dream,  and  determined  to  give  the  name  to  the  oil  of  hazel- 
nuts.    He  saw  the  will  of  heaven  revealed  in  this  fancy. 

Cesar  and  Popinot  were  both  at  the  factory  in  the  Faubourg 
du  Temple  long  before  the  hazelnuts  arrived.  While  they 
waited  for  Mme.  Madou's  porters,  Popinot  in  high-glee  told 
the  whole  history  of  his  treaty  of  alliance  with  Gaudissart  the 
Great. 

"We  have  the  illustrious  Gaudissart  for  us;  we  shall  be 
millionaires  !  "  cried  the  perfumer,  holding  out  a  hand  to  his 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  129 

cashier,  with  the  air  of  Louis  XIV.  receiving  a  Marechal  de 
Villairs  after  Denain. 

"And  yet  another  thing,"  said  the  happy  assistant,  drawing 
a  bottle  from  his  pocket,  a  gourd-shaped  flask,  flattened  so  as 
to  present  several  sides.  "  I  have  found  ten  thousand  bottles 
like  this  one,  ready  made  and  washed,  at  four  sous  and  six 
months'  credit." 

"Anselme,"  said  Birotteau,  beholding  this  marvel,  "  yes- 
terday "  (here  his  voice  grew  solemn),  "yesterday,  in  the 
garden  of  the  Tuileries — yes,  no  longer  ago  than  yesterday — 
your  words  to  me  were,  '  I  shall  succeed.'  To-day  I  myself 
say  to  you,  '  You  will  succeed  !  '  Four  sous  !  Six  months  ! 
An  entirely  new  shape  !  Macassar  is  shaking  in  his  shoes ; 
what  a  death-blow  for  Macassar  !  What  a  good  thing  that  I 
have  bought  up  all  the  nuts  I  could  lay  my  hands  on  in  Paris  ! 
But  where  did  you  find  these  bottles?  " 

"  I  was  waiting  to  speak  to  Gaudissart,  and  sauntering 
about " 

"Just  as  I  once  did  !  "  exclaimed  Birotteau. 

"And  as  I  went  down  the  Rue  Aubry-le-Boucher,  I  saw  a 
wholesale  glass-merchant's  place,  a  dealer  in  bell-glasses  and 

glass  shades,  who  has  a  very  large  stock  ;  I  saw  this  bottle 

Oh  !  it  stared  me  in  the  face  like  a  flash  of  light ;  something 
said,  '  Here  is  the  thing  for  you  !  '  " 

"A  born  merchant  !  He  shall  have  my  daughter,"  mut- 
tered Cesar. 

"  In  I  went,  and  saw  thousands  of  the  bottles  standing  there 
in  boxes." 

"Did  you  ask  him  about  them?" 

"You  do  not  think  me  such  a  ninny!"  cried  Anselme, 
grieved  at  the  thought. 

"  Born  merchant  !  "  repeated  Birotteau. 

"  I  went  in  to  ask  for  glass  shades  for  little  wax  statuettes. 
While  I  was  bargaining  for  the  glass  shades,  I  found  fault  with 
the  shape  of  these  bottles.  That  led  to  a  general  confession ; 
9 


130  CESAR  BIROTTBAU. 

my  bottle  merchant  went  from  one  thing  to  another,  and  told 
me  that  Faille  and  Bouchot,  who  failed  lately,  were  about  to. 
bring  out  a  cosmetic,  and  wanted  an  out-of-the-way  shape. 
He  distrusted  them;  he  wanted  half  the  money  down;  Faille 
and  Bouchot,  hoping  for  a  success,  parted  with  the  money, 
and  the  failure  came  out  while  the  bottles  were  being  made. 
When  they  put  in  a  claim  to  the  trustees  for  the  rest,  the 
trustees  compromised  the  matter  by  leaving  them  with  all  the 
bottles  and  half  the  money  that  had  been  paid,  as  an  indemnity 
for  goods  which  they  said  were  absurdly  shaped  and  im- 
possible to  dispose  of.  The  bottles  cost  him  eight  sous,  and 
he  would  be  glad  to  let  any  one  have  them  for  four.  He 
might  have  them  on  his  hands  for  heaven  knew  how  long ; 
there  was  no  sale  for  such  a  shape.  '  Will  you  engage  to  supply 
ten  thousand  at  four  sous  ?  I  can  take  the  bottles  off  your 
hands  ;  I  am  Monsieur  Birotteau's  assistant.'  And  so  I  opened 
up  the  subject,  and  drew  him  out,  led  him  on,  and  put  pres- 
sure on  my  man,  and  he  is  ours." 

"Four  sous!"  said  Birotteau.  "Do  you  know  that  we 
can  bring  out  the  oil  at  three  francs,  and  make  thirty  sous, 
leaving  twenty  to  the  retailers?  " 

"The  Cesarian  Oil !  "  cried  Popinot. 

"  Cesarian  Oil? Ah,  master  lover,  you  have  a  mind 

to  flatter  father  and  daughter.  Very  well  ;  let  it  be  Cesarian 
Oil  if  you  like.  The  Caesars  conquered  the  world  ;  they 
must  have  had  famous  heads  of  hair." 

"  Caesar  was  bald,"  said  Popinot. 

"Because  he  did  not  use  our  oil,  people  will  say.  The 
Cesarian  Oil  at  three  francs  ;  Macassar  Oil  costs  twice  as 
much.  Gaudissart  is  in  it;  we  shall  make  a  hundred  thousand 
francs  a  year,  for  we  will  set  down  all  heads  that  respect  them- 
selves for  a  dozen  bottles  every  twelvemonth  ;  eighteen  francs 
of  profit  !  Say  there  are  eighteen  thousand  heads — a  hundred 
and  forty- four  thousand  francs.     We  shall  be  millionaires." 

When  the  hazelnuts  arrived,  Raguet  and  the  work-people, 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  131 

with  Popinot  and  Cesar,  cracked  the  shells,  and  a  sufficient 
quantity  was  pressed.  In  four  hours'  time  they  had  several 
pounds  weight  of  oil.  Popinot  took  some  of  it  to  Vauquelin, 
who  presented  him  with  a  formula  for  diluting  the  essential 
oil  with  a  less  expensive  medium  and  for  perfuming  it.  Pop- 
inot straightway  took  steps  for  taking  out  a  patent  for  the  in- 
vention and  the  improvement.  It  was  Popinot's  ambition  to 
pay  his  share  of  the  expense  of  starting  the  enterprise,  and 
the  devoted  Gaudissart  lent  the  money  for  the  deposit. 

Prosperity  has  an  intoxicating  effect,  which  always  turns 
weak  heads.  One  result  of  this  uplifted  state  of  mind  is 
readily  foreseen.  Grindot  came.  He  brought  with  him  a 
sketch  in  water-colors  of  a  charming  interior,  the  design  for 
the  future  rooms  when  furnished.  Birotteau  was  carried  away 
by  it.  He  agreed  to  everything,  and  the  workmen  began  at 
once ;  every  stroke  of  the  pickaxe  drew  groans  from  the 
house  and  from  Constance.  The  painter,  M.  Lourdois,  a 
very  wealthy  contractor,  who  engaged  to  leave  nothing  un- 
done, talked  of  gilding  the  drawing-room.  Constance  inter- 
posed at  this. 

"  Monsieur  Lourdois,"  said  she,  "  you  have  thirty  thousand 
francs  a  year  of  your  own ;  you  live  in  your  own  house,  and 
you  can  do  what  you  like  in  it ;  but  for  people  like  us " 

"  Madame,  commerce  ought  to  shine ;  it  should  not  suffer 
itself  to  be  eclipsed  by  the  aristocracy.  Beside,  here  is  Mon- 
sieur Birotteau  in  the  Government ;  he  is  a  public  man " 

"Yes,  but  he  is  still  in  the  store,"  said  Constance  aloud, 
before  the  assistants  and  her  five  auditors  ;  "  neither  he,  nor 
I,  nor  his  friends,  nor  his  enemies  will  forget  that." 

Birotteau  raised  himself  on  tiptoe  several  times,  with  his 
hands  clasped  behind  his  back. 

"My  wife  is  right,"  said  he.  "We  will  be  modest  in 
prosperity.  Beside,  so  long  as  a  man  is  in  business,  he  ought 
to  be  careful  of  his  expenses  and  to  keep  them  within 
bounds;  indeed,  he  is  bound  by  law  not  to  indulge  in  'ex* 


132  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

cessive  expenditure.'  If  the  enlargement  of  my  premises 
and  the  amount  spent  on  the  alterations  exceed  a  certain 
limit,  it  would  be  imprudent  in  me  to  go  beyond  it ;  you 
yourself  would  blame  me,  Lourdois.  The  quarter  has  its  eyes 
upon  me;  successful  people  are  looked  upon  jealously  and 
envied.  Ah  !  you  will  soon  know  that,  young  man,"  he  said, 
addressing  Grindot ;  "  if  they  slander  us,  at  any  rate  let  us 
give  them  no  cause  to  say  evil  of  us." 

"  Neither  slander  nor  spite  can  touch  you,"  said  Lourdois; 
"your  position  makes  an  exception  of  you;  and  you  have 
had  such  a  great  experience  of  business  that  you  know  how 
to  always  keep  your  affairs  within  due  limits.  You  are  very 
shrewd,  monsieur." 

"I  have  had  some  experience  of  business  it  is  true;  do 
you  know  the  reason  why  we  are  enlarging  our  house  ?  If  I 
exact  a  heavy  penalty  to  secure  punctuality  it  is " 

"No." 

"  Well,  then,  my  wife  and  I  are  inviting  a  few  friends, 
partly  to  celebrate  the  liberation  of  the  soil,  partly  on  the 
occasion  of  my  promotion  to  the  Order  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor." 

"What,  what?"  cried  Lourdois.  "  Have  they  given  you 
the  cross  ?  ' ' 

"  Yes.  It  may  be  that  I  have  shown  myself  worthy  of  this 
signal  mark  of  royal  favor  by  discharging  my  functions  at 
the  Consular  Tribunal  and  by  fighting  for  the  Royalist  cause 
on  the  13th  of  Vend^miaire  at  Saint-Roch,  when  I  was 
wounded  by  Napoleon.  Will  you  come  and  bring  your  wife 
and  your  young  lady ?'" 

"  Enchanted  by  the  honor  you  condescend  to  bestow  upon 
me,"  said  Lourdois,  a  Liberal.  "  But  you  are  a  droll  fellow, 
Birotteau ;  you  mean  to  make  sure  that  I  shall  keep  my  word, 
and  that  is  why  you  ask  me  to  come.  Well,  well ;  I  will  set 
my  best  workmen  on  to  it ;  we  will  have  roaring  fires  to  dry 
the  paint  and  use  drying  processes,  for  it  will  not  do  to  dance 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  133 

in  a  room  full  of  steam  from  the  damp  plaster.     The  surface 
shall  be  varnished,  so  that  there  shall  be  no  smell." 

Three  days  later,  the  announcement  of  Birotteau's  forth- 
coming ball  created  a  flutter  in  the  commercial  world  of  that 
quarter.  And  not  only  so,  every  one  could  see  for  himself 
the  timber  props,  necessitated  by  the  hurried  alteration  of  the 
staircase,  and  the  square  wooden  shaft-holes,  through  which 
the  rubbish  was  shot  into  the  carts  beneath.  The  men  in 
their  haste  worked  by  torchlight,  for  they  had  a  night-and- 
day  shift,  and  this  collected  idlers  and  inquisitive  gazers  in 
the  street.  On  such  preparations  as  these,  the  gossip  of  the 
neighborhood  reared  sumptuous  fabrics  of  conjecture. 

On  the  Sunday,  when  the  documents  relative  to  the  build- 
ing land  were  to  be  signed,  M.  and  Mme.  Ragon  and  Uncle 
Pillerault  came  at  four  o'clock,  after  vespers.  Cesar  said  that, 
as  the  house  was  so  much  pulled  to  pieces,  he  could  only  ask 
Charles  Claparon,  Roguin,  and  Crottat  for  that  day.  The 
notary  brought  a  copy  of  the  "Journal  des  Debats,"  in 
which  M.  de  la  Billardiere  had  inserted  the  following  para- 
graph : 

"We  hear  that  the  liberation  of  the  soil  will  be  celebrated 
with  enthusiasm  throughout  France  ;  but,  in  Paris,  the  mem- 
bers of  the  municipal  administration  have  felt  that  the  time 
had  come  for  reviving  the  splendor  of  the  capital,  which  has 
been  eclipsed  during  the  foreign  occupation  from  a  feeling  of 
patriotism.  Each  of  the  mayors  and  deputy-mayors  proposes 
to  give  a  ball,  so  that  the  winter  season  promises  to  be  a  very 
brilliant  one,  and  the  National  movement  will  be  followed  up. 
Among  the  many  fetes  about  to  take  place  is  the  much-talked- 
of  ball  to  be  given  by  M.  Birotteau,  recently  nominated  for 
the  Legion  of  Honor,  and  so  widely  known  for  his  devotion 
to  the  Royalist  cause.  M.  Birotteau,  wounded  in  the  affair 
of  Saint-Roch  on  the  13th  of  Vendemiaire,  and  one  of  the 


134  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

most  highly  respected  judges  of  the  Consular  Tribunal,  has 
doubly  deserved  this  distinction." 

"  How  well  they  write  nowadays  !  "  exclaimed  C6sar. 
"They  are  talking  about  us  in  the  paper,"  he  added,  turning 
to  Pillerault. 

"Well,  and  what  of  that?"  returned  the  uncle,  who  par- 
ticularly detested  the  "Journal  des  Debats." 

"  Perhaps  the  paragraph  may  sell  some  of  the  Pate  des  Sul- 
tanes  and  the  Toilet  Lotion,"  said  Mme.  C6sar  in  a  low  voice 
to  Mme.  Ragon.  Mme.  Birotteau  did  not  share  her  husband's 
exhilaration. 

Mme.  Ragon,  a  tall,  thin  woman,  with  a  sharp  nose  and 
thin  lips,  looked  a  very  fair  imitation  of  a  marquise  of  the 
ancien  regime.  A  somewhat  wide  margin  of  red  encircled  her 
eyes,  as  sometimes  happens  with  aged  women  who  have  known 
many  troubles.  Her  fine  austere  face,  in  spite  of  its  kindli- 
ness, was  dignified,  and  there  was,  moreover,  a  quaint  some- 
thing about  her  which  struck  beholders,  yet  did  not  excite  a 
smile,  a  something  interpreted  by  her  manner  and  her  dress. 
She  wore  mittens  ;  she  carried  in  all  weathers  a  cane  umbrella, 
such  as  Marie  Antoinette  used  at  the  Trianon ;  her  favorite 
color  was  that  particular  pale  shade  of  brown  known  zsfeuille- 
morte  (dead  leaves) ;  her  skirts  hung  from  her  waist  in  folds, 
which  will  never  be  seen  again,  for  the  dowager  ladies  of  a 
bygone  day  have  taken  their  secret  with  them.  Mme.  Ragon 
had  not  given  up  the  black  mantilla  bordered  with  square- 
meshed  black  lace ;  the  ornaments  in  her  old-fashioned  caps 
reminded  you  of  the  filigree  work  on  old  picture-frames.  She 
took  snuff  with  the  dainty  neatness  and  the  little  gestures 
which  a  younger  generation  may  recall,  if  they  have  been  so 
fortunate  as  to  see  their  great-aunt  or  grandmother  solemnly 
set  her  gold  snuff-box  on  the  table  beside  her,  and  shake  the 
stray  grains  from  her  fichu. 

The  Sieur  Ragon  was  a  little  man,  five  feet  high  at  the 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  135 

most,  with  a  countenance  of  the  nutcracker  type.  Two  eyes 
were  visible,  two  prominent  cheek-bones,  a  nose,  and  a  chin. 
As  he  had  lost  his  teeth,  he  mumbled  half  his  words,  but  he 
talked  like  a  brook,  politely,  somewhat  pompously,  and  always 
with  a  smile — the  same  smile  with  which  he  had  greeted  the 
Fair  ladies  of  quality  whom  one  chance  or  another  brought  to 
his  store.  His  hair,  tightly  scraped  back  from  his  forehead 
and  powdered,  described  a  snowy  half-moon  on  his  head,  with 
a  pair  of  "pigeon's  wings  "  on  either  side  of  a  neat  queue 
tied  with  ribbon.  He  wore  a  cornflower-blue  coat,  a  white 
vest,  silk  breeches  and  stockings,  black  silk  gloves,  and  shoes 
with  gold  buckles  to  them.  The  most  peculiar  thing  about 
him  was  his  habit  of  walking  out  in  the  street  hat  in  hand. 
He  looked  rather  like  a  messenger  of  the  Chamber  of  Peers 
or  some  usher-in-waiting  at  the  palace — one  of  those  attendant 
satellites  of  some  great  power,  which  shine  with  a  reflected 
glory  and  remain  intrinsically  insignificant. 

"Well,  Birotteau,"  he  remarked,  and  from  his  tone  he 
might  have  been  addressing  an  assistant,  "are  you  sorry  now, 
my  boy,  that  you  took  our  advice  in  those  days?  Did  we 
ever  doubt  the  gratitude  of  our  beloved  royal  family?" 

"You  must  be  very  happy,  my  dear,"  said  Mme.  Ragon, 
addressing  Mme.  Birotteau. 

"Yes,  indeed,"  returned  the  fair  Constance,  who  always 
fell  under  the  charm  of  that  cane  umbrella,  those  butterfly 
caps,  those  tight-fitting  sleeves,  and  the  ample  fichu  a  la  Julie 
that  Mme.  Ragon  wore. 

"  Cesarine  looks  charming.  Come  here,  pretty  child," 
said  Mme.  Ragon.  She  spoke  in  a  patronizing  manner  and 
with  a  high  head-voice. 

"  Shall  we  settle  the  business  before  dinner?"  asked  Uncle 
Pillerault. 

"We  are  waiting  for  Monsieur  Claparon,"  said  Roguin; 
"he  was  dressing  when  I  left  him." 

"Monsieur   Roguin,"  Cesar   began,   "does  he  quite  un- 


136  C&SAR  BIkOTTEAU. 

derstand  that  we  are  to  dine  to-day  in  a  wretched  little  entre- 
sol  " 

("Sixteen  years  ago  he  thought  it  magnificent,"  murmured 
Constance.) 

"Among  the  rubbish,  and  with  all  the  workmen  about?" 

"  Pooh  !  you  will  find  him  a  good  fellow,  and  not  hard  to 
please,"  said  Roguin. 

"I  have  left  Raguet  to  look  after  the  store;  we  cannot 
come  in  and  out  of  our  own  door  now ;  as  you  have  seen,  it 
has  all  been  pulled  down,"  Cesar  returned. 

"Why  did  you  not  bring  your  nephew?"  asked  Pillerault 
of  Mme.  Ragon. 

"Shall  we  see  him  later?"  suggested  Cesarine. 

"No,  darling,"  said  Mme.  Ragon.  "  Anselme,  dear  boy, 
is  working  himself  to  death.  I  am  afraid  of  that  close  street 
where  the  sun  never  shines,  that  vile-smelling  Rue  des  Cinq- 
Diamants ;  the  gutter  is  always  black  or  blue  or  green.  I 
am  afraid  he  may  die  there.     But  when  young  people  set  their 

minds  upon  anything !"  she  said,  turning  to  Cesarine 

with  a  gesture  that  interpreted  "mind"  as  "heart." 

"Then,  has  the  lease  been  signed?"  asked  Cesar. 

"Yesterday,  before  a  notary,"  Ragon  replied.  "  He  has 
taken  the  place  for  eighteen  years,  but  he  pays  the  rent  six 
months  in  advance." 

"Well,  Monsieur  Ragon,  are  you  satisfied  with  me?" 
Birotteau  asked.  "  I  have  given  him  the  secret  of  a  new  dis- 
covery— in  fact ! ' ' 

"We  know  you  by  heart,  Cesar,"  said  little  Ragon,  taking 
Cesar's  hands  and  pressing  them  with  devout  friendliness. 

Roguin  meanwhile  was  not  without  inward  qualms.  Cla- 
paron  was  about  to  appear  on  the  scene,  and  his  habits  and 
manner  of  talking  might  be  something  of  a  shock  to  these  re- 
spectable citizens.  He  thought  it  necessary  to  prepare  their 
minds,  and  spoke,  addressing  Ragon,  Pillerault,  and  the 
women. 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  137 

"  You  will  see  an  eccentric  character,"  he  said  ;  "he  hides 
his  talents  beneath  shocking  bad  manners;  his  ideas  have 
raised  him  from  a  very  low  position.  No  doubt  he  will  ac- 
quire better  tastes  in  the  society  of  bankers.  You  might 
come  across  him  slouching  half-fuddled  along  the  boulevard 
or  in  a  cafe  playing  at  billiards ;  he  looks  like  a  great  hulking 
idiot.  But  nothing  of  the  kind ;  he  is  thinking  all  the  time, 
pondering  how  to  put  life  into  trade  by  new  ideas." 

"lean  understand  that,"  said  Birotteau ;   "  my  best  ideas* 
came  to  me  while  I  was  sauntering  about,  didn't  they,  dear?  " 

"  Claparon  makes  up  for  lost  time  at  night,  after  spending 
the  daytime  in  meditating  over  business  combinations.  All 
these  very  clever  people  lead  queer  inexplicable  lives,"  Roguin 
continued.  "Well,  with  all  his  desultory  ways,  he  gains  his 
end,  as  I  can  testify.  He  made  all  the  owners  of  our  build- 
ing land  give  way  at  last ;  they  were  not  willing,  they  de- 
murred at  this  and  that ;  he  mystified  them — tired  them  out ; 
day  after  day  he  went  to  see  them,  and  this  time  the  lots  are 
ours." 

A  peculiar  sounding  brown  /  brown  !  characteristic  of  drink- 
ers of  strong  waters  and  spirits,  announced  the  arrival  of  the 
most  grotesque  personage  in  this  story — who  was  in  the  future 
to  enact  the  part  of  the  arbiter  of  Cesar's  destinies.  The 
perfumer  hurried  down  the  narrow,  dark  staircase,  partly  to 
tell  Raguet  to  close  the  store,  partly  to  make  his  excuses  for 
receiving  Claparon  in  the  dining-room. 

"Eh,  what?  Oh,  it  will  do  very  well  for  stowing  the 
vict ,  I  mean  for  doing  business  in." 

In  spite  of  Roguin's  skillful  opening,  the  entrance  of  the 
sham  great  banker  at  once  produced  an  unpleasant  impression 
upon  those  well-bred  citizens,  M.  and  Mme.  Ragon,  upon 
the  observant  Pillerault,  and  upon  Cesarine  and  her  mother. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-eight,  or  thereabouts,  the  former  com- 
mercial traveler  had  not  a  hair  on  his  head,  and  wore  a  wig 
of  corkscrew  curls.     Such  a  manner  of  dressing  the  hair  de* 


138  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

mands  a  girlish  freshness,  a  milk-white  skin,  and  the  daintiest 
feminine  charm ;  so  it  brought  out  all  the  vulgarity  of  a 
pimpled  countenance,  a  dark-red  complexion,  flushed  like  that 
of  a  stage  coachman,  and  covered  with  premature  wrinkles 
and  deeply-cut  grotesque  lines  which  told  of  a  dissolute  life  ; 
its  ill  effects  could  be  read  only  too  plainly  in  the  bad  state 
of  his  teeth  and  the  black  specks  dotted  Over  the  shriveled 
skin. 

There  was  something  about  Claparon  that  suggested  the 
provincial  actor  who  frequents  fairs,  and  is  prepared  to  play 
any  and  every  part,  to  whose  worn,  shrunken  cheeks  and 
flabby  lips  the  paint  refuses  to  adhere;  the  tongue  always 
wagging  even  when  the  man  is  drunk ;  the  shameless  eyes, 
the  compromising  gestures.  Such  a  face  as  this,  lighted  up 
by  the  hilarious  flames  of  punch,  little  befitted  a  man  accus- 
tomed to  important  business.  Indeed,  only  after  prolonged 
and  necessary  studies  in  mimicry  had  Claparon  succeeded  in 
adopting  a  manner  not  wholly  out  of  keeping  with  his  sup- 
posed importance.  Du  Tillet  had  assisted  personally  at  Cla- 
paron's  toilet,  anxious  as  a  nervous  manager  over  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  his  principal  actor,  for  he  trembled  lest  the  vicious 
habits  of  a  reckless  life  should  appear  through  the  veneer  of 
the  banker. 

"Say  as  little  as  you  can,"  said  his  mentor;  "a.  banker 
never  babbles ;  he  acts,  thinks,  meditates,  listens,  and  pon- 
ders. So,  to  look  like  a  real  banker,  you  must  either  not 
speak  at  all  or  say  insignificant  things.  Keep  those  ribald 
eyes  of  yours  quiet;  look  solemn  at  the  risk  of  looking  stupid. 
In  politics,  be  for  the  Government,  but  keep  to  generalities, 
such  as — *  There  is  a  heavy  budget ;  compromise  as  parties 
stand  is  out  of  the  question ;  Liberalism  is  dangerous ;  the 
Bourbons  ought  to  avoid  all  collisions ;  Liberalism  is  a  cloak 
to  hide  the  schemes  of  the  coalition  ;  the  Bourbons  are  inau- 
gurating an  epoch  of  prosperity,  so  let  us  give  them  our  sup- 
port, whether  we  are  well  affected  to  them  or  not ;  France 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  139 

has  had  enough  of  political  experiments,'  and  the  like.  And 
don't  sprawl  over  all  the  tables;  remember  that  you  have  to 
sustain  the  dignity  of  a  millionaire.  Don't  snort  like  a  pen- 
sioner when  you  take  snuff;  play  with  your  snuff-box  and  look 
at  your  boots  or  at  the  ceiling  before  you  give  an  answer ;  look 
as  wise  as  you  can,  in  fact.  Above  all  things,  rid  yourself  of 
your  unlucky  habit  of  fingering  everything.  In  society  a 
banker  ought  to  look  as  if  he  were  glad  to  let  his  fingers  rest. 
And  look  here  !  you  work  at  night,  you  are  stupid  with 
making  calculations,  there  are  so  many  things  to  consider  in 
the  starting  of  an  enterprise  !  so  much  thinking  is  involved  ! 
Grumble,  above  all  things,  and  say  that  trade  is  very  bad. 
Trade  is  dull,  slow,  hard  to  move,  perplexing.  Keep  to  that, 
and  let  particulars  alone.  Don't  begin  to  sing  drolleries  of 
Beranger's  at  table,  and  don't  drink  too  much ;  you  will  ruin 
your  prospects  if  you  get  tipsy.  Roguin  will  keep  an  eye  on 
you ;  you  are  going  among  moral  people,  respectable,  steady- 
going  folk,  don't  frighten  them  by  letting  out  some  of  your 
pot-house  principles." 

This  homily  produced  on  Charles  Claparon's  mind  an  effect 
very  similar  to  the  strange  sensation  of  his  new  suit  of  clothes. 
The  rollicking  prodigal,  hail-fellow-well-met  with  everybody, 
accustomed  to  the  comfortable,  disreputable  garments  in 
which  his  outer  man  was  as  much  at  home  as  his  thoughts  in 
the  language  that  clothed  them,  held  himself  upright,  stiff  as 
a  poker  in  the  new  clothes  for  which  the  tailor  had  kept  him 
waiting  to  the  last  minute,  and  was  as  ill  at  ease  in  his  move- 
ments as  in  this  new  phraseology.  He  put  out  a  hand  un- 
thinkingly toward  a  flask  or  a  box,  then,  hurriedly  recollect- 
ing himself,  drew  it  in  again,  and  in  the  same  way  he  began  a 
sentence  and  stopped  short  in  the  middle,  distinguishing  him- 
self by  a  ludicrous  incoherence,  which  did  not  escape  the 
observant  Pillerault.  His  round  face,  like  the  rakish-looking 
corkscrew  ringlets  of  his  wig,  were  totally  out  of  keeping 
with  his  manner,  and  he  seemed  to  think  one  thing  and  say 


140  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

another.    But  the  good  folk  concluded  that  his  inconsequence 
was  the  result  of  preoccupation. 

"He  does  so  much  business,"  said  Roguin. 

"Business  has  given  him  very  little  breeding,"  Mme.  Ra- 
gon  said  to  Cesarine. 

M.  Roguin  overheard  her,  and  laid  a  finger  on  his  lips. 
"  He  is  rich,  clever,  and  honorable  to  a  fault,"  he  said,  bend- 
ing to  Mme.  Ragon. 

"  He  may  be  excused  something  for  such  qualities  as  those," 
said  Pillerault  to  Ragon. 

"  Let  us  read  over  the  papers  before  dinner,"  said  Roguin. 
"  We  are  alone." 

Mme.  Ragon,  Cesarine,  and  Constance  left  the  contracting 
parties,  Pillerault,  Ragon,  Cesar,  Roguin,  and  Claparon,  to 
listen  to  the  reading  of  the  documents  by  Alexandre  Crottat. 
Cesar  signed  a  mortgage  bond  for  forty  thousand  francs  se- 
cured on  the  land  and  the  factory  in  the  Faubourg  du  Temple 
(the  money  had  been  lent  by  one  of  Roguin's  clients);  he 
paid  over  to  Roguin  Pillerault's  order  on  the  bank,  gave 
(without  taking  a  receipt)  twenty  thousand  francs  worth  of 
bills  from  his  portfolio,  and  drew  another  bill  for  the  remain- 
ing hundred  and  forty  thousand  francs  on  Charles  Claparon. 

"I  have  no  receipt  to  give  you,"  said  that  gentleman. 
"You  are  acting  for  your  own  side  with  Monsieur  Roguin,  as 
we  are  doing  for  our  share.  Our  vendors  will  receive  their 
money  from  him  in  coin  ;  I  only  undertake  to  complete  your 
payment  by  paying  a  hundred  and  forty  thousand  francs  for 
your  bills " 

"  That  is  right,"  said  Pillerault. 

"Well,  then,  gentlemen,  let  us  call  in  the  ladies  again,  for 
it  is  cold  without  them,"  said  Claparon,  with  a  look  at  Ro- 
guin to  see  whether  he  had  gone  too  far. 

"  Ladies  ! Ah  !   mademoiselle  is  your  young  lady,  of 

course,"  said  Claparon,  looking  at  Birotteau  and  straighten- 
ing himself  up.     "  Well,  well,  you  are  not  a  bungler.     Not 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  141 

one  of  the  roses  that  you  have  distilled  can  be  compared  with 
her,  and,  perhaps,  it  is  because  you  have  distilled  roses 
that " 

"  Faith  !  "  said  Roguin,  interrupting  him,  "I  own  that  I 
am  hungry." 

"  Very  well,  let  us  have  dinner,"  said  Birotteau. 

"  We  are  to  have  dinner  in  the  presence  of  a  notary,"  said 
Claparon,  with  an  important  air. 

"You  do  a  great  deal  of  business,  do  you  not  ?"  said  Pil- 
lerault,  purposely  seating  himself  next  to  the  banker. 

"A  tremendous  amount,  wholesale,"  replied  Claparon; 
"  but  trade  is  dull,  hard  to  move — there  are  canals  now.  Oh, 
canals  !  You  have  no  idea  how  busy  we  are  with  canals. 
That  is  comprehensible.  The  Government  wants  canals.  A 
canal  is  a  want  generally  felt.  All  the  trade  of  a  department 
is  interested  in  a  canal,  you  know  !  A  stream,  said  Pascal, 
is  a  moving  highway.  The  next  thing  is  a  market,  and  mar- 
kets depend  on  embankments,  for  there  are  a  frightful  lot  of 
embankments,  and  the  embankments  interest  the  poorer 
classes,  and  that  means  a  loan,  which  finally  benefits  the 
poor!  Voltaire  said,  'Canal,  canard,  canaille  I'  But  Gov- 
ernment depends  for  information  on  its  own  engineers ;  it  is 
difficult   to  meddle  in  the  matter — at  least,  it  is  difficult  to 

come  to  an  understanding  with  them  ;   for  the  Chamber 

Oh  !  sir,  the  Chamber  gives  us  trouble  !  The  Chamber  does 
not  want  to  grapple  with  the  political  question  hidden  be- 
neath the  financial  question.  There  is  bad  faith  on  all  sides. 
Would  you  believe  this?  There  are  the  Kellers — well,  then, 
Francois  Keller  is  a  public  speaker,  he  attacks  the  measures 
of  the  Government  as  to  the  funds  and  canals.  He  comes 
home,  and  then  my  fine  gentleman  finds  us  with  our  proposi- 
tions ;  they  are  favorable,  and  he  has  to  make  it  up  with  the 
aforesaid  Government,  which  he  attacked  so  insolently  an 
hour  ago.  The  interests  of  the  public  speaker  clash  with  the 
interests  of  the  banker;  we  are  between  two  fires.     Now  you 


142,  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

understand  how  thorny  affairs  become ;  you  have  to  satisfy 
everybody — the  clerks,  the  people  in  the  chambers,  and  the 
people  in  the  ante-chambers,  and  the  ministers " 

"The  ministers?  "  asked  Pillerault,  who  wished  to  probe 
this  partner's  mind  thoroughly. 

"Yes,  sir,  the  ministers." 

"Well,  then,  the  newspapers. are  right,"  said  Pillerault. 

"Here  is  uncle  on  politics,"  said  Birotteau;  "Monsieur 
Claparon  has  set  him  off," 

"Newspapers!"  said  Claparon,  "there  are  some  more 
confounded  humbugs  !  Newspapers  throw  us  all  into  confu- 
sion ;  they  do  us  a  good  turn  now  and  then,  but  the  cruel 
nights  they  make  me  spend  !  I  would  as  lief  be  without 
them  ;  they  are  the  ruin  of  my  eyes,  in  fact,  poring  over  them 
and  working  out  calculations." 

"But  to  return  to  the  ministers,"  said  Pillerault,  hoping 
for  revelations. 

"Ministers  have  exigencies  which  are  purely  governmental. 
But  what  am  I  eating;  is  it  ambrosia?"  asked  Claparon,  in- 
terrupting himself.  "  Here  is  a  sort  of  sauce  that  you  only 
have  in  citizens'  houses  ;  you  never  get  it  at  grub-shops " 

At  that  word,  the  ornaments  on  Mme.  Ragon's  cap  skipped 
like  rams.  Claparon  gathered  that  the  expression  was  low, 
and  tried  to  retrieve  his  error. 

"That  is  what  the  heads  of  large  banking  firms  call  the 
high-class  taverns — Very  and  the  Freres  Provencaux.  Well, 
neither  those  vile  grub-shops  nor  our  most  accomplished 
cooks  make  you  a  soft,  mellow  sauce ;  some  give  you  water 
with  lemon-juice  in  it,  and  others  give  you  chemical  concoc- 
tions." 

The  conversation  at  dinner  chiefly  consisted  in  attacks  from 
Pillerault,  who  tried  to  plumb  his  man,  and  only  found  empti- 
ness ;  he  looked  upon  him  as  a  dangerous  person. 

"It  is  going  on  all  right,"  said  Roguin  in  Charles  Cla- 
paron's  ear. 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU,  143 

"Oh  !  I  shall  get  out  of  my  clothes  to-night,  I  suppose," 
answered  Claparon,  who  was  gasping  for  breath. 

"  We  are  obliged  to  use  our  dining-room  as  a  sitting-room, 
sir,"  said  Birotteau,  "because  we  are  looking  forward  to  a 
little  gathering  of  our  friends  in  eighteen  days'  time,  partly 
to  celebrate  the  liberation  of  the  soil " 

"Right,  sir;  I  myself  am  also  for  the  Government. 
My  political  convictions  incline  me  to  the  statu  quo  of  the 
great  man  who  guides  the  destinies  of  the  house  of  Austria,  a 
fine  fellow  !  Keep  what  you  have,  to  get  more  ;  and,  in  the 
first  place,  get  more,  to  keep  what  you  have.  So  now  you 
know  the  bottom  of  my  opinions,  which  have  the  honor  to  be 
those  of  Prince  Metternich  !  " 

"  Partly  on  the  occasion  of  my  promotion  to  the  Order  of 
the  Legion  of  Honor,"  Cesar  went  on. 

"  Why,  yes,  I  know.  Now  who  was  telling  me  about  that? 
Was  it  the  Kellers  or  Nucingen  ?  " 

Roguin,  amazed  at  so  much  presence  of  mind,  signified  his 
admiration. 

"  Oh,  no;  it  was  at  the  Chamber." 

"At  the  Chamber.  Was  it  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere  ?  " 
asked  Cesar. 

"  The  very  man." 

"  He  is  charming,"  said  Cesar,  addressing  his  uncle. 

"He  pours  out  talk,  talk,  talk,  till  you  are  drowned  in 
talk,"  said  Pillerault. 

"It  may  be,"  resumed  Birotteau,  "that  I  have  shown 
myself  worthy  of  this  favor " 

"  By  your  achievements  in  perfumery  ;  the  Bourbons  know 
how  to  reward  merit  of  every  kind.  Ah  !  let  us  stand  by  our 
generous  legitimate  Princes,  to  whom  we  shall  owe  unheard-of 
prosperity  about  to  be.  For,  you  may  be  sure  of  it,  the 
Restoration  feels  that  she  must  enter  the  lists  with  the  Empire, 
and  the  Restoration  will  make  peaceful  conquests ;  you  will 
see  conquests  ! " 


144  CESAR    BIROTTEAV. 

"You  will  no  doubt  honor  us  by  coming  to  our  ball,  sir," 
said  Mme.  Cesar. 

"To  spend  an  evening  with  you,  madame,  I  would  miss  a 
chance  of  making  millions." 

"  He  certainly  is  a  babbler,"  said  Cesar  in  his  uncle's  ear. 

While  the  waning  glory  of  the  Queen  of  Roses  was  about 
to  shed  abroad  its  parting  rays,  a  faint  star  was  rising  above 
the  commercial  horizon  ;  at  that  very  hour,  little  Popinot  was 
laying  the  foundations  of  his  fortune  in  the  Rue  des  Cinq- 
Diamants.  The  Rue  des  Cinq-Diamants,  a  short,  narrow 
thoroughfare,  where  loaded  wagons  can  scarcely  pass  each 
other,  runs  between  the  Rue  des  Lombards  and  the  Rue 
Aubry-le-Boucher,  into  which  it  opens  just  opposite  the  end 
of  the  Rue  Quincampoix,  that  street  so  famous  in  the  history 
of  France  and  of  old  Paris. 

In  spite  of  this  narrowness,  the  near  neighborhood  of  the 
druggists'  quarter  made  the  place  convenient ;  and  from  that 
point  of  view  Popinot  had  not  made  a  bad  choice.  The  house 
(the  second  from  the  end  nearest  the  Rue  des  Lombards)  was 
so  dark  that  at  times  it  was  necessary  to  work  by  artificial 
light  in  the  daytime.  Popinot  had  taken  possession  the  even- 
ing before  of  all  its  darkest  and  most  unsavory  recesses.  His 
predecessor,  a  dealer  in  molasses  and  raw  sugars,  had  left  his 
mark  on  the  place ;  the  walls,  the  yard,  and  the  warehouse 
bore  unmistakable  traces  of  his  occupation. 

Imagine  a  large  and  roomy  store,  the  huge  doors  barred 
with  iron  and  painted  dragon-green,  the  solid  iron  scroll-work, 
with  bolt-heads  as  large  as  mushrooms  by  way  of  ornament. 
The  store  was  adorned  and  protected,  as  bakers'  stores  used 
to  be,  by  wire-work  lattices,  which  bulged  at  the  bottom,  and 
was  paved  with  great  slabs  of  white  stone,  cracked  for  the 
most  part.  The  walls  of  a  guard-house  are  not  yellower  nor 
barer.  Further  on  came  the  back-shop  and  kitchen,  which 
looked  out  into  the  yard ;  and  behind  these  again  a  second 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  145 

wareroom,  which  must  at  one  time  have  been  a  stable.  An 
inside  staircase  had  been  contrived  in  the  back-shop,  by  which 
you  gained  two  rooms  that  looked  out  upon  the  street ;  here 
Popinot  meant  to  have  his  counting-house  and  his  ledgers. 
Above  the  warehouse  there  were  three  small  rooms,  all  backed 
against  the  party-wall,  and  lighted  by  windows  on  the  side  of 
the  yard.  It  was  in  these  dilapidated  rooms  that  Popinot  pro- 
posed to  live. 

The  view  from  the  windows  was  shut  in  by  the  high  walls 
that  rose  about  the  dingy,  crooked  yard,  walls  so  damp  that 
even  in  the  driest  weather  they  looked  as  if  they  had  been 
newly  distempered.  The  cracks  in  the  paving-stones  were 
choked  with  black,  malodorous  filth,  deposited  there  during 
the  tenancy  of  the  dealer  in  molasses  and  raw  sugars.  So 
much  for  the  outlook.  As  to  the  rooms  themselves,  only  one 
of  them  boasted  a  fireplace  ;  the  floors  were  of  brick,  the  walls 
were  un papered. 

Gaudissart  and  Popinot  had  been  busy  there  ever  since  the 
morning,  putting  up  a  cheap  wall-paper  with  their  own  hands 
in  the  ugly  room  ;  a  journeyman  paperhanger  whom  Gaudissart 
ferreted  out  had  varnished  it  for  them.  The  furniture  con- 
sisted of  a  student's  mattress,  a  wooden  bedstead  painted  red, 
a  rickety  nightstand,  a  venerable  chest  of  drawers,  a  table,  a 
couple  of  armchairs,  and  half-a-dozen  ordinary  chairs,  a 
present  from  Popinet  the  judge  to  his  nephew.  Gaudissart 
had  put  a  cheap  pier-glass  over  the  mantel.  It  was  almost 
eight  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  the  two  friends,  sitting 
before  a  blazing  fire,  were  about  to  discuss  the  remains  of  their 
breakfast. 

"Away  with  the  cold  mutton  !  It  is  out  of  character  in  a 
house-warming,"  cried  Gaudissart. 

Popinot  held  up  his  last  twenty-franc  piece,  which  was  to 
pay  for  the  prospectus.     "  But  I "  he  began. 

"I?"  retorted  Gaudissart,  sticking  a  forty-franc  piece  into 
his  eye. 
10 


146  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

A  knock  at  the  street-door  reverberated  through  the  yard. 
It  was  Sunday.  The  workpeople  were  taking  their  holiday 
away  from  their  workshops,  and  the  idle  echoes  greeted  every 
sound. 

"  There  is  my  trusty  man  from  the  Rue  de  la  Poterie,"  Gau- 
dissart  went  on.  "  For  my  own  part,  it  is  not  simply  '  I '  but 
'I  have.'  " 

And,  in  fact,  a  waiter  appeared,  followed  by  two  kitchen- 
boys,  carrying  between  them  three  wicker  baskets,  containing 
a  dinner,  and  crowned  by  six  bottles  of  wine  selected  with 
discrimination. 

"But  how  are  we  to  eat  such  a  lot  of  things?"  asked 
Popinot. 

"  There  is  the  man  of  letters,"  cried  Gaudissart.  "  Finot 
understands  the  pomps  and  vanities.  The  artless  youth  will 
be  here  directly  with  a  prospectus  fit  to  make  your  hair  stand 
on  end  (neat  that,  eh?),  and  prospectuses  are  always  dry  work. 
You  must  water  the  seeds  if  you  mean  to  have  flowers.  Here, 
minions,"  he  added,  striking  an  attitude  for  the  benefit  of  the 
kitchen-boys,  "here's  gold  for  you." 

He  held  out  six  sous  with  a  gesture  worthy  of  his  idol, 
Napoleon. 

"Thank  you,  Monsieur  Gaudissart,"  said  the  scullions, 
more  pleased  with  the  joke  than  with  the  few  ceutimes  of 
money. 

"As  for  thee,  my  son,"  he  continued,  turning  to  the  waiter 
who  remained,  "  there  is  a  portress  here.  She  crouches  in 
the  depths  of  a  cave,  where  at  times  she  does  some  cooking, 
as  erewhile  Nausicaa  did  the  washing,  simply  by  way  of  re- 
laxation. Hie  thee  to  her,  work  on  her  trustful  nature ;  in- 
terest her,  young  man,  in  the  temperature  of  thy  hot  dishes. 
Say  to  her  that  she  shall  be  blessed,  and  above  all  things  re- 
spected, highly  respected,  by  Felix  Gaudissart,  son  of  Jean- 
Francois  Gaudissart,  and  grandson  of  Gaudissart,  vile  prole- 
taries of  remote  lineage,  his  ancestors.      Off  with  you,  and  act 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  147 

in  such  a  sort  that  everything  shall  be  good  ;  for  if  it  isn*t  I 
will  make  you  laugh  on  the  wrong  side  of  your  face." 

There  was  another  knock  at  the  door. 

"That  is  the  ingenious  Andoche,"  said  Gaudissart. 

A  stout  young  fellow  suddenly  entered.  He  had  somewhat 
chubby  cheeks,  was  of  middle  height,  and  from  head  to  foot 
looked  like  the  hatter's  son.  A  certain  shrewdness  lurked 
beneath  the  air  of  constraint  that  sat  on  his  rounded  features. 
The  habitual  dejection  of  a  man  who  is  tired  of  poverty  left 
him,  and  a  hilarious  expression  crossed  his  countenance  at 
the  sight  of  the  preparations  on  the  table  and  the  significant 
seals  on  the  bottle-corks.  At  Gaudissart's  shout,  a  twinkle 
came  into  the  pale-blue  eyes,  the  big  head,  on  which  a 
Kalmuck  physiognomy  had  been  carved,  rolled  from  side  to 
side,  and  he  gave  Popinot  a  distant  greeting,  in  which  there 
was  neither  servility  nor  respect,  like  a  man  who  feels  out  of 
his  element  and  stands  on  his  dignity. 

Finot  was  just  beginning  to  discover  that  he  had  no  sort  of 
talent  for  literature;  he  did  not  think  of  quitting  his  calling: 
he  meant  to  exploit  literature  by  raising  himself  on  the  shoul- 
ders of  men  who  possessed  the  talent  which  he  lacked.  In- 
stead of  doing  ill-paid  work  himself  he  would  turn  his  business 
capacities  to  account.  He  was  just  at  the  turning-point;  he 
had  exhausted  the  expedients  of  humility  ;  he  had  experienced 
to  the  full  the  humiliations  of  failure ;  and,  like  those  who 
take  a  wide  outlook  over  the  financial  world,  he  resolved  to 
change  his  tactics  and  to  be  insolent  in  future.  He  needed 
capital  in  the  first  instance,  and  Gaudissart  had  opened  out  a 
prospect  of  making  the  money  by  putting  Popinot's  oil  before 
the  public. 

"You  will  make  his  arrangements  with  the  newspapers," 
Gaudissart  had  said,  "  but  don't  swindle  him  ;  if  you  do  there 
will  be  a  duel  to  the  death  between  us  ;  give  him  value  for 
his  money  !  " 

Popinot  looked  uneasily  at  the  "author."     Your  true  man 


148  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

of  business  regards  an  author  with  mixed  feelings,  in  which 
alarm  and  curiosity  are  blended  with  compassion  ;  and  though 
Popinot  had  been  well  educated,  his  relations'  attitude  of 
mind  and  ways  of  thinking,  together  with  a  course  of  drudgery 
in  a  store,  had  produced  their  effect  on  his  intelligence,  and 
he  bent  beneath  the  yoke  of  use  and  wont.  You  can  see  this 
by  noticing  the  metamorphoses  which  ten  years  will  effect 
among  a  hundred  boys,  who  when  they  left  school  or  college 
were  almost  exactly  alike. 

Andoche  mistook  the  impression  which  he  had  made  for 
admiration.  v 

"Very  well.  Let  us  run  through  the  prospectus  before 
dinner,  then  it  will  be  off  our  minds,  and  we  can  drink," 
said  Gaudissart.  "It  is  uncomfortable  to  read  after  dinner; 
the  tongue  is  digesting  too." 

"Sir,"  said  Popinot,  "a  prospectus  often  means  a  whole 
fortune." 

"And  for  nobodies  like  me,"  said  Andoche,  "fortune  is 
nothing  but  a  prospectus." 

"Ah!  very  good,"  said  Gaudissart.  "That  droll  fellow 
of  an  Andoche  has  wit  enough  for  the  Forty." 

"  For  a  hundred,"  said  Popinot,  awestruck  with  the  idea. 

Gaudissart  snatched  up  the  manuscript,  and  read  aloud, 
and  with  emphasis,  the  first  two  words — "  Cephalic  Oil  !  " 

"  I  like  Cesarian  Oil  better,"  said  Popinot.  ' 

"You  don't  know  them  in  the  provinces,  my  friend,"  said 
Gaudissart.  "There  is  a  surgical  operation  known  by  that 
name,  and  they  are  so  stupid  that  they  will  think  your  oil  is 
meant  to  facilitate  childbirth  ;  and  if  they  start  off  with  the 
notion,  it  would  be  too  hard  work  to  bring  them  all  the  way 
back  to  hair  again." 

"Without  defending  the  name,"  observed  the  author,  "I 
would  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  Cephalic  Oil  means 
oil  for  the  head,  and  resumes  your  ideas." 

"  Go  on  !  "  said  Popinot  impatiently. 


CltSAR  BIROTTEAU:  149 

And  here  follows  a  second  historical  document,  a  pros- 
pectus, which  even  at  this  day  is  circulating  by  thousands 
among  retail  perfumers : 


GOLD   MEDAL,    PARIS,    1824.* 


CEPHALIC    OIL 

(Improved  Patent). 

No  cosmetic  can  make  the  hair  grow ;  and  in  the  same  way,  it  cannot 
be  dyed  by  chemical  preparations  without  danger  to  the  seat  of  the  intelli- 
gence. Science  has  recently  proclaimed  that  the  hair  is  not  a  living  sub- 
stance, and  that  there  is  no  means  of  preventing  it  from  blanching  or  falling 
out.  To  prevent  xerasia  and  baldness,  the  bulb  at  the  roots  should  be  pre- 
served from  all  atmospheric  influences  and  the  natural  temperature  of  the 
head  evenly  maintained.  The  Cephalic  Oil,  based  on  these  principles 
established  by  the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences,  induces  the  important 
result  so  highly  prized  by  the  ancients,  the  Romans  and  Greeks,  and  the 
nations  of  the  North — a  fine  head  of  hair.  Learned  research  has  brought 
to  light  the  fact  that  the  nobles  of  olden  times,  who  were  distinguished  by 
their  long,  flowing  locks,  used  no  other  means  than  these;  their  recipe, 
long  lost,  has  been  ingeniously  rediscovered  by  A.  Popinot,  inventor  of 
Cephalic  Oil. 

To  preserve  the  glands,  and  not  to  provoke  an  impossible  or  hurtful 
stimulation  of  the  dermis  which  contains  them,  is,  therefore,  the  function 
of  Cephalic  Oil.  This  oil,  which  exhales  a  delicious  fragrance,  prevents 
the  exfoliation  of  the  pellicle  ;  while  the  substances  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed (the  essential  oil  of  the  hazelnut  being  the  principal  element)  coun- 
teract the  effects  of  atmospheric  air  upon  the  head,  thus  preventing  chills, 
catarrh,  and  all  unpleasant  encephalic  affections  by  maintaining  the  natural 
temperature.  In  this  manner  the  glands,  which  contain  the  hair-producing 
secretions,  are  never  attacked  by  heat  or  cold.  A  fine  head  of  hair — that 
glorious  product  so  highly  valued  by  either  sex — may  be  retained  to  ex- 
treme old  age  by  the  use  of  Cephalic  Oil,  which  imparts  to  the  hair  the 

*  The  next  "  Quinquennial  Exhibition." 


150  CESAR  BIROTTEAlf. 

brilliancy,  silkiness,  and  gloss  which  constitutes  the  charm  of  children's 
heads. 

Directions  for  use  are  issued  on  the  wrapper  of  every  bottle. 

DIRECTIONS  FOR    USE. 

It  is  perfectly  useless  to  apply  oil  to  the  hair  itself;  beside  being  an 
absurd  superstition,  it  is  an  obnoxious  practice,  for  the  cosmetic  leaves  its 
traces  everywhere. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  part  the  hair  with  a  comb,  and  to  apply  the  oil 
to  the  roots  every  morning  with  a  small,  fine  sponge,  proceeding  thus  until 
the  whole  surface  of  the  skin  has  received  a  slight  application,  the  hair 
having  been  previously  combed  and  brushed. 

To  prevent  spurious  imitations,  each  bottle  bears  the  signature  of  the 
inventor.  Sold  at  the  price  of  three  francs  by  A.  Popinot,  Rue  des 
Cinq-Diamants,  Quartier  des  Lombards,  Paris. 

It  is  particularly  requested  that  all  communications  by  post  should  be 
prepaid. 

Note. — A.  Popinot  also  supplies  essences  and  pharmaceutical  prepara- 
tions, such  as  neroli,  oil  of  spike-lavender,  oil  of  sweet-almonds,  cacao- 
butter,  caffein,  castor  oil,  et  ccetera. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  the  illustrious  Gaudissart,  address- 
ing Finot,  "  it  is  perfectly  written  !  Ye  gods,  how  we  plunge 
into  deep  science  !  No  shuffling ;  we  go  straight  to  the  point ! 
Ah  !  I  congratulate  you  heartily ;  there  is  literature  of  some 
practical  use  !  " 

"A  fine  prospectus  !  "  cried  Popinot  enthusiastically. 

"The  very  first  sentence  is  a  death-blow  to  Macassar,"  said 
Gaudissart,  rising  to  his  feet  with  a  magisterial  air,  to  pro- 
claim with  an  oratorical  gesture  between  each  word,  "  '  You — 
cannot — make — hair — grow.  It — cannot — be — dyed — with- 
out— danger  !  '  Aha !  success  lies  in  that.  Modern  science 
corroborates  the  custom  of  the  ancients.  You  can  suit  your- 
self to  old  and  young.  You  have  to  do  with  an  old  man. 
'Aha,  sir  !  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  the  ancients,  were  in  the 
right ;  they  were  not  such  fools  as  some  would  make  them  out 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  151 

to  be  !  '  Or  if  it  is  a  young  man.  '  My  dear  fellow,  another 
discovery  due  to  the  progress  of  enlightenment ;  we  are  pro- 
gressing. What  must  we  not  expect  from  steam,  and  the 
telegraph,  and  such  like  inventions?  This  oil  is  the  outcome 
of  Monsieur  Vauquelin's  investigations  !  '  How  if  we  were  to 
print  an  extract  from  M.  Vauquelin's  paper,  eh?  Capital! 
Come,  Finot,  draw  up  your  chair  !  Let  us  stow  the  victuals, 
and  tipple  down  the  champagne  to  our  young  friend's  suc- 
cess !  " 

"It  seemed  to  me,"  said  the  author  modestly,  "that  the 
time  for  the  light  and  playful  prospectus  has  gone  by  ;  we  are 
entering  on  an  epoch  of  science,  and  must  talk  learnedly  and 
authoritatively  to  make  an  impression  on  the  public." 

"We  will  push  the  oil.  My  feet,  and  my  tongue,  too,  are 
hankering  to  go.  I  have  agencies  for  all  the  houses  that  deal 
in  hairdressers'  goods,  not  one  of  them  gives  more  than  thirty 
per  cent,  of  discount ;  make  up  your  mind  to  give  forty,  and 
I  will  engage  to  sell  a  hundred  thousand  bottles  in  six  months. 
I  will  make  a  set  on  all  the  druggists,  grocers,  and  hair- 
dressers !  And  if  you  will  allow  them  forty  per  cent,  on  your 
oil,  they  will  all  send  their  customers  wild  for  it." 

The  three  young  men  ate  like  lions,  drank  like  Swiss,  and 
waxed  merry  over  the  future  success  of  the  Cephalic  Oil. 

"This  oil  goes  to  your  head,"  said  Finot,  smiling,  and 
Gaudissart  exhausted  whole  series  of  puns  on  the  words  oil, 
head,  and  hair. 

In  the  midst  of  their  Homeric  laughter  over  the  dessert, 
the  knocker  sounded,  and,  in  spite  of  the  toasts  and  the 
wishes  for  luck  exchanged  among  the  three  friends,  they 
heard  it. 

"It  is  my  uncle  1  He  is  capable  of  coming  to  see  me," 
cried  Popinot. 

"An  uncle?  "  asked  Finot,  "  and  we  have  not  a  glass  !  " 

"  My  friend  Popinot's  uncle  is  an  examining  magistrate," 
said  Gaudissart,  by  way  of  reply  to  Finot  ;  "  there  is  no  occa- 


152  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

sion  to  hoax  him,  he  saved  my  life.  Ah  !  if  you  had  found 
yourself  in  the  fix  I  was  in,  with  the  scaffold  staring  you  in  the 
face,  where,  kouik,  off  goes  your  hair  for  good  !  "  (and  he  im- 
itated the  fatal  knife  by  a  gesture),  "  you  would  be  apt  to 
remember  the  righteous  judge  to  whom  you  owe  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  channel  that  the  champagne  goes  down  !  You 
would  remember  him  if  you  were  dead  drunk.  You  don't 
know,  Finot,  but  what  you  may  want  M.  Popinot  one  day. 
Saquerlotie  !  You  must  make  your  bow  to  him,  and  thirteen 
to  the  dozen  !  " 

It  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  "  righteous  judge,"  who  was 
asking  for  his  nephew  of  the  woman  who  opened  the  door. 
Anselme  recognized  the  voice,  and  went  down,  candle  in 
hand,  to  light  his  way. 

"Good-evening,  gentlemen,"  said  the  magistrate. 

The  illustrious  Gaudissart  made  a  profound  bow.  Finot 
looked  the  new-comer  over  with  drunken  eyes,  and  decided 
that  Popinot's  uncle  was  tolerably  wooden-headed. 

"There  is  no  luxury  here,"  said  the  judge,  gravely  looking 
round  the  room  ;  "  but,  my  boy,  you  must  begin  by  being 
nothing  if  you  are  to  be  something  great." 

"How  profound  he  is  !  "  exclaimed  Gaudissart,  turning  to 
Finot. 

"An  idea  for  an  article,"  said  the  journalist. 

"  Oh  !  is  that  you,  sir  ?  "  asked  the  judge,  recognizing  the 
commercial  traveler.      "  Eh  !  what  are  you  doing  here?  " 

"  I  want  to  do  all  my  little  part,  sir,  toward  making  your 
dear  nephew's  fortune.  We  have  just  been  pondering  over 
the  prospectus  for  this  oil  of  his,  and  this  gentleman  here  is 
the  author  of  the  prospectus,  which  seems  to  us  to  be  one  of 
the  finest  things  in  the  literature  of  periwigs." 

The  judge  looked  at  Finot. 

"  This  gentleman  is  Monsieur  Andoche  Finot,"  Gaudissart 
said,  "one  of  the  most  distinguished  young  men  in  literature; 
he  does  political  leaders  and  the  minor  theatres  for  the  Gov- 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  153 

ernment  newspapers;  he  is  a  minister  who  is  by  way  of  being 
an  author." 

Here  Finot  tugged  at  Gaudissart's  coat-tails. 

"Very  well,  boys,"  said  the  judge,  to  whom  these  words 
explained  the  appearance  of  the  table  covered  with  the  rem- 
nants of  a  feast  very  excusable  under  the  circumstances. 

"As  for  you,  Anselme,"  he  continued,  turning  to  Popinot, 
"get  ready  to  pay  a  visit  to  Monsieur  Birotteau  ;  I  must  go  to 
see  him  this  evening.  You  will  sign  your  deed  of  partnership; 
I  have  gone  through  it  very  carefully.  As  you  are  going  to 
manufacture  your  oil  in  the  Faubourg  du  Temple,  I  think  that 
he  ought  to  make  over  the  lease  of  the  workshop  to  you,  and 
that  he  has  power  to  sublet ;  if  things  are  all  in  order,  it  will 
save  disputes  afterward.  These  walls  look  to  me  to  be  very 
damp,  Anselme;  bring  up  trusses  of  straw  and  put  them  round 
about  where  your  bed  stands." 

"  Excuse  me,  sir,"  said  Gaudissart  with  a  courtier's  supple- 
ness, "we  have  just  put  up  the  wall-paper  ourselves  to-day, 
and — it — is — not  quite  dry." 

"  Economy  !   good  !  "  said  the  judge. 

"Listen,"  said  Gaudissart  in  Finot's  ear;  "my  friend 
Popinot  is  a  good  young  man  ;  he  is  going  off  with  his  uncle, 
so  come  along  and  let  us  finish  the  evening  with  our  fair 
cousins." 

The  journalist  turned  out  the  lining  of  his  vest  pocket. 
Popinot  saw  the  manoeuvre,  and  slipped  a  twenty-franc  piece 
into  the  hand  of  the  author  of  his  prospectus.  The  judge  had 
a  cab  waiting  at  the  corner  of  the  street,  and  carried  off  his 
nephew  to  call  on  Birotteau. 

Pillerault,  M.  and  Mine.  E.agon,  and  Roguin  were  playing 
at  boston,  and  Cesarine  was  embroidering  a  fichu,  when  the 
elder  Popinot  and  Anselme  appeared.  Roguin,  sitting  op- 
posite Mme.  Ragon,  could  watch  Cesarine,  who  sat  by  her 
side,  and  saw  the  happy  look  on  the  girl's  face  when  Anselme 
came  in,  saw  her  flush  up  red  as  a  pomegranate  flower,  and 


154  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

called  his  head  clerk's  attention  to  her  by  a  significant 
gesture. 

"  So  this  is  to  be  a  day  of  deeds,  is  it  ?  "  said  the  perfumer, 
when  greetings  had  been  exchanged,  and  the  judge  explained 
the  reason  of  the  visit. 

Cesar,  Anselme,  and  the  judge  went  up  to  the  perfumer's 
temporary  quarters  on  the  second  floor  to  debate  the  matter 
of  the  lease  and  the  deed  of  partnership  drawn  up  by  the 
elder  Popinot.  It  was  arranged  that  the  lease  should  run  for 
eighteen  years,  so  as  to  be  conterminous  with  the  lease  of  the 
house  in  the  Rue  des  Cinq-Diamants ;  trifling  matter  as  it 
appeared  at  the  time,  it  was  destined  later  to  serve  Birotteau's 
interests. 

When  they  returned  to  the  sitting-room,  the  elder  Popinot, 
surprised  by  the  confusion  and  the  men  at  work  on  a  Sunday 
in  the  house  of  so  devout  a  man,  asked  the  reason  of  it  all. 
This  was  the  question  for  which  Cesar  was  waiting. 

"Although  you  are  not  worldly,  sir,  you  will  not  object  to 
our  celebrating  our  deliverance ;  and  that  is  not  all — if  we 
are  arranging  for  a  little  gathering  of  our  friends,  it  is  partly 
also  to  celebrate  my  promotion  to  the  Order  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor." 

"  Ah  !  "  said  the  examining  magistrate  (who  had  not  been 
decorated). 

"  It  may  be  that  I  have  shown  myself  not  unworthy  of  this 
signal  mark  of  royal  favor  by  discharging  my  functions  at  the 

Tribunal oh  !  I  mean  to  say  Consular  Tribunal,  and  by 

fighting  for  the  Royalist  cause  on  the  steps " 

"Yes,"  said  the  magistrate. 

"Steps  of  Saint-Roch,  on  the  13th  of  Vendemiaire,  where 
I  was  wounded  by  Napoleon." 

"I  shall  be  glad  to  come,"  said  M.  Popinet ;  "and  if  my 
wife  is  well  enough,  I  will  bring  her." 

"Xandrot,"  said  Roguin,  on  the  doorstep,  "give  up  all 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  155 

thoughts  of  marrying  Cesarine ;  in  six  weeks'  time  you  will 
see  that  I  have  given  you  sound  counsel." 

"Why?"  asked  Crottat. 

"  My  dear  fellow,  Birotteau  is  about  to  spend  a  hundred 
thousand  francs  over  this  ball  of  his,  and  he  is  embarking 
his  whole  fortune,  against  my  advice,  in  this  building-land 
scheme.  In  six  weeks'  time  these  people  will  not  have  bread 
to  eat.  Marry  Mademoiselle  Lourdois,  the  house-painter's 
daughter ;  she  has  three  hundred  thousand  francs  to  her  for- 
tune. I  have  planned  this  shift  for  you.  If  you  will  pay  me 
down  the  money,  you  can  have  my  practice  to-morrow  for  a 
hundred  thousand  francs." 

The  splendors  of  the  perfumer's  forthcoming  bail,  an- 
nounced to  Europe  by  the  newspapers,  were  very  differently 
announced  in  commercial  circles  by  flying  rumors  of  work- 
people employed  night  and  day  on  the  perfumer's  house. 
The  rumors  took  various  forms ;  here  it  was  said  that  Cesar 
had  taken  the  house  on  either  side ;  there,  that  his  drawing- 
rooms  were  to  be  gilded ;  some  said  that  no  tradespeople 
would  be  invited,  and  that  the  ball  was  given  to  Government 
officials  only ;  and  the  perfumer  was  severely  blamed  for  his 
ambition,  they  scoffed  at  his  political  aspirations,  they  denied 
that  he  had  been  wounded  !  More  than  one  scheme  was  set 
on  foot,  in  the  second  arrondissement,  in  consequence  of  the 
ball ;  the  friends  of  the  family  took  things  quietly,  but  the 
claims  of  distant  acquaintances  were  vast. 

Those  who  have  favor  to  bestow  never  lack  courtiers ;  and 
a  goodly  number  of  the  guests  were  at  no  little  pains  to  pro- 
cure their  cards  of  invitation.  The  Birotteaus  were  amazed 
to  find  so  many  friends  whose  existence  they  had  not  sus- 
pected. This  eagerness  on  their  part  alarmed  Mme.  Birot- 
teau ;  she  looked  more  and  more  gloomy  as  the  days  went 
by  and  the  solemn  festival  came  nearer.  She  had  confessed 
to  Cesar  from  the  very  first  that  she  should  not  know  how  to 


156  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

act  her  part  as  hostess,  and  the  innumerable  small  details 
frightened  her.  Where  was  the  plate  to  come  from  ?  How 
about  the  glass,  the  refreshments,  the  forks  and  spoons?  And 
who  would  look  after  it  all  ?  She  begged  Birotteau  to  stand 
near  the  door  and  see  that  no  one  came  who  had  not  been 
asked  to  the  ball ;  she  had  heard  strange  things  about  people 
who  came  to  dances  claiming  acquaintance  with  people  whom 
they  did  not  know  by  name. 

One  evening,  ten  days  before  the  famous  Sunday,  Messieurs 
Braschon,  Grindot,  Lourdois,  and  Chaffaroux  the  contractor 
having  given  their  word  that  the  rooms  should  be  ready  for 
the  17th  of  December,  there  had  been  a  laughable  conference 
after  dinner  in  the  humble  little  sitting-room  on  the  mezza- 
nine floor — Cesar  and  his  wife  and  daughter  were  making  a 
list  of  guests  and  writing  the  cards  of  invitation,  which  had 
been  sent  in  only  that  morning,  nicely  printed  in  the  English 
fashion  on  rose-colored  paper,  in  accordance  with  the  precepts 
laid  down  in  the  "  Complete  Guide  to  Etiquette." 

"Look  here  !  "  said  Cesar;  "we  must  not  leave  anybody 
out." 

"If  we  forget  any  one,"  remarked  Constance,  "we  shall 
be  reminded  of  it.  Madame  Derville,  who  never  called  upon 
us  before,  sailed  in  yesterday  evening  in  great  state." 

"She  was  very  pretty;  I  liked  her,"  said  Cesarine. 

"  Yet  before  she  was  married  she  was  even  worse  off  than 
was  I,"  said  Constance  ;  "  she  used  to  do  plain  needlework  in 
the  Rue  Montmartre  ;  she  has  made  shirts  for  your  father." 

"  Well,  let  us  put  the  great  people  down  at  the  top  of  the 
list,"  said  Cesar.  "  Write  '  M.  le  Due  and  Mme.  la  Duchesse 
de  Lenoncourt,'  Cesarine." 

"Goodness!  Cesar,"  cried  Constance,  "pray  don't  begin 
to  send  invitations  to  people  whom  you  only  know  through 
the  business.  Are  you  going  to  ask  the  Princesse  de  Blamont- 
Chauvry  ?  She  is  more  nearly  related  to  your  late  godmother, 
the  Marquise  d'Uxelles,  than  even  the  Due  de  Lenoncourt. 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  157 

And  shall  you  ask  the  two  Messieurs  Vandenesse,  de  Marsay, 
de  Ronquerolles,  de  l'Aiglemont ;  in  short,  all  your  cus- 
tomers ?     You  are  mad  ;   honors  are  turning  your  head " 

"  Yes  !  but  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  Fontaine  and  his  family. 
Eh  ?  He  used  to  come  to  the  Queen  of  Roses  under  the 
name  of  Grand-Jacques  with  the  Gars  (M.  le  Marquis  de 
Montauran  that  was)  and  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere,  whom 
they  called  the  Nantais  in  the  days  before  the  great  affair  of 
the  13th  of  Vendemiaire.  And  they  would  shake  hands  with 
you  then,  and  it  was,  '  My  dear  Birotteau,  keep  your  heart 
up,  and  give  your  life,  like  the  rest  of  us,  for  the  good  cause  !  ' 
We  are  old  fellow-conspirators." 

"Put  him  down,"  said  Constance;  "if  Monsieur  de  la 
Billardiere  and  his  son  are  coming  they  must  have  somebody 
to  speak  to." 

"Set  down  his  name,  Cesarine,"  said  Birotteau.  "Impri- 
mis, his  worship  the  prefect  of  the  Seine  ;  he  may  or  may  not 
come,  but  he  is  the  head  of  the  municipal  corporation,  and 
'  honor  to  whom  honor  is  due.'  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere, 
the  mayor,  and  his  son.  (Write  down  the  number  of  the 
people  after  every  name.)  My  colleague,  Monsieur  Granet, 
and  his  wife.  She  is  very  ugly,  but,  all  the  same,  we  cannot 
leave  her  out.  Monsieur  Curel,  the  goldsmith,  colonel  of  the 
National  Guard,  and  his  wife  and  two  daughters.  Those  are 
what  I  call  the  authorities.  Now  for  the  big-wigs  !  Monsieur 
le  Comte  and  Madame  la  Comtesse  de  Fontaine  and  their 
daughter,  Mademoiselle  Emilie  de  Fontaine." 

"An  insolent  girl,  who  makes  me  come  out  of  the  store  to 
speak  to  her  at  her  carriage-door  in  all  weathers,"  said  Mme. 
Cesar.     "If  she  comes  at  all,  it  will  be  to  make  fun  of  us." 

"  In  that  case,  perhaps,  she  will  come,"  said  Cesar,  who 
meant  to  fill  his  rooms  at  all  costs.  "  Go  on,  Cesarine — • 
Monsieur  le  Comte  and  Madame  la  Comtesse  de  Granville,  my 
landlord,  the  hardest  head  in  the  Court  of  Appeal,  Derville 
says.     Oh  !  by-the-by;  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere  has  arranged 


158  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

for  me  to  be  presented  to-morrow  by  Monsieur  le  Comte  de 
Lacepede  himself;  it  is  only  polite  to  ask  the  grand  chan- 
cellor to  dinner  and  to  the  ball.  Monsieur  Vauquelin.  Put 
him  down  for  the  dinner  and  for  the  ball  too,  Cesarine.  And, 
while  we  remember  it,  all  the  Chiffrevilles  and  the  Protez 
family.  Monsieur  Popinot,  judge  of  the  Tribunal  of  the 
Seine,  and  Madame  Popinot.  Monsieur  and  Madame  Thi- 
rion,  he  is  an  usher  of  the  Privy  Chamber  and  a  friend 
of  the  Ragons ;  it  is  said  that  their  daughter  is  to  be  married 
to  one  of  Monsieur  Camusot's  sons  by  his  first  marriage." 

"  Cesar,  do  not  forget  young  Horace  Bianchon  ;  he  is  Popi- 
not's  nephew  and  Anselme's  cousin,"  put  in  Constance. 

"Ah,  to  be  sure?  Cesarine  has  put  a  figure  four  very 
plainly  after  the  Popinots.  Monsieur  and  Madame  Ra- 
bourdin ;  Rabourdin  is  at  the  head  of  one  of  the  departments 
in  de  la  Billardiere's  division.  Monsieur  Cochin  of  the  same 
department,  and  his  wife  and  son  ;  they  are  sleeping-partners 
in  Matifat's  concern ;  and,  while  we  are  about  it,  put  down 
Monsieur  and  Madame  and  Mademoiselle  Matifat." 

"  The  Matifats  have  been  making  overtures  for  their  friends, 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Colleville,  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Thuillier,  and  the  Saillards." 

"We  shall  see,"  said  Cesar.  "Our  stockbroker,  Jules 
Desmarets,  and  his  wife." 

"She  will  be  the  prettiest  woman  in  the  room!"  cried 
Cesarine.     "I  like  her,  oh  !  more  than  any  one  !  " 

"  Derville  and  his  wife." 

"Just  put  down  Monsieur  and  Madame  Coquelin,  who 
took  over  Uncle  Pillerault's  business,"  said  Constance.  "They 
made  so  sure  of  being  asked  that  the  poor  little  thing  is 
having  a  grand  ball-dress  made  by  my  dressmaker — a  white 
satin  overskirt  covered  with  tulle,  embroidered  with  blue 
chicory  flowers.  It  would  not  have  taken  much  to  persuade 
her  to  have  a  gold-embroidered  court-dress.  If  we  left  them 
out,. we  should  make  two  bitter  enemies." 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  159 

"  Put  them  down,  Cesarine  ;  we  must  show  our  respect  for 
trade,  for  we  are  tradespeople  ourselves.  Monsieur  and 
Madame  Roguin." 

"  Mamma,  Madame  Roguin  will  wear  her  necklace,  all  her 
diamonds,  and  her  mechlin-lace  gown." 

"  Monsieur  and  Madame  Lebas,"  Cesar  continued.  "And 
next,  the  president  of  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce  and  his  wife 
and  two  daughters  (I  forgot  to  put  them  among  the  authorities). 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Lourdois  and  their  daughter.  Cla- 
paron  the  banker ;  du  Tillet,  Grindot,  Monsieur  Molineux  ; 
Pillerault  and  his  landlord  ;  Monsieur  and  Madame  Camusot, 
the  rich  silk  mercer,  and  all  their  family,  the  one  at  the 
Ecole  Polytechnique  and  the  advocate ;  he  will  receive  an 
appointment  as  judge — he  is  the  one  that  is  engaged  to  be 
married  to  Mademoiselle  Thirion." 

"It  will  only  be  a  provincial  appointment,"  said  Made- 
moiselle Cesarine. 

"  Monsieur  Cardot,  Camusot' s  father-in-law,  and  all  the 
young  Cardots.  Stay !  there  are  the  Guillaumes  in  the  Rue 
du  Colombier,  Lebas'  wife's  people,  two  old  folk  who  will 
be  wall-flowers.     Alexandre  Crottat — Celestin " 

"  Papa,  do  not  forget  Andoche  Finot  and  Gaudissart,  two 
young  men  who  have  been  so  useful  to  Anselme." 

"Gaudissart?  He  got  himself  into  trouble.  But  never 
mind,  he  is  going  away  in  a  few  days,  and  will  travel  for  our 
oil — so  put  him  down  !  As  for  Master  Andoche  Finot,  what 
is  he  to  us  ?  " 

"Anselme  says  that  he  will  be  a  great  man  ;  he  is  as  clever 
as  Voltaire." 

"An  author  is  he?     They  are  all  of  them  atheists." 

"Put  him  down,  papa;  so  far  there  are  not  so  very  many 
men  who  dance.  Beside,  your  nice  prospectus  for  the  oil  was 
his  doing." 

"He  believes  in  our  oil,  does  he?"  said  Cesar.  "Put 
him  down,  dear  child." 


160  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"So  I,  too,  have  my  proteges  on  the  list,"  commented 
Cesarine. 

"Put  Mitral,  my  process-server,  and  our  doctor,  Monsieur 
Haudry;  it  is  for  form's  sake,  he  will  not  come." 

"  He  will  come  for  his  game  of  cards,"  said  Cesarine. 

"Ah  !  by-the-by,  Cesar,  I  hope  that  you  will  ask  Monsieur 
l'Abbe  Loraux  to  dinner  !  " 

"  I  have  written  to  him  already,"  said  Cesar. 

"Oh!  we  must  not  forget  Lebas'  sister-in-law,  Madame 
Augustine  de  Sommervieux,"  said  Cesarine.  "Poor  little 
thing  !  she  is  very  unwell ;  Lebas  said  that  she  was  dying  of 
grief." 

"  See  what  comes  of  marrying  an  artist,"  cried  the  per- 
fumer. "Just  look  at  your  mother;  she  has  fallen  asleep," 
he  said,  in  a  low  voice,  to  his  daughter.  "  By-by — sleep 
softly,  Madame  Cesar.  Well,  now,"  said  Cesar,  turning  to 
his  daughter,  "  how  about  your  mother's  dress  ?  " 

"  Yes,  papa,  everything  will  be  ready.  Mamma  thinks 
that  she  is  to  have  a  Canton  crepe  gown  like  mine,  and  the 
dressmaker  is  sure  that  there  is  no  need  to  try  it  on." 

"How  many  are  there  altogether?"  Cesar  went  on  aloud, 
as  his  wife  opened  her  eyes. 

"A  hundred  and  nine,  with  the  assistants,"  said  Cesarine. 

"Where  are  we  going  to  put  all  those  people?"  asked 
Mme.  Birotteau.  "  And  when  all  is  over,  after  the  Sunday 
comes  Monday,"  she  said  na'ively. 

Nothing  can  be  done  simply  when  people  aspire  to  rise 
from  one  social  rank  to  another.  Neither  Mme.  Birotteau, 
nor  Cesar,  nor  any  one  else  might  venture  on  any  pretext 
whatsoever  on  to  the  second  floor.  Cesar  had  promised  the 
errand-boy  Raguet  a  new  suit  of  clothes  if  he  kept  watch 
faithfully  and  carried  out  his  orders  properly.  Like  the  Em- 
peror Napoleon  at  Compiegne,  when  he  had  the  chateau 
restored  for  his  marriage  with  Marie-Louise  of  Austria,  Birot- 
teau wanted  to  see  nothing  until  the  whole  was  finished ;  he 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  161 

meant  to  enjoy  "the  surprise."  So  all  unconsciously  the 
old  enemies  met,  this  time  not  on  the  field  of  battle,  but  on 
the  common  ground  of  bourgeois  vanity.  M.  Grindot  was  to 
take  Cesar  over  the  new  rooms  like  a  cicerone  exhibiting  a 
gallery  to  a  tourist. 

Every  one  in  the  house,  moreover,  had  his  or  her  own 
"surprise."  Cesarine,  the  dear  child,  had  spent  a  hundred 
louis,  all  her  little  hoard,  on  books  for  her  father.  M.  Grindot 
had  confided  to  her  one  morning  that  there  were  two  fitted 
bookcases  in  her  father's  room,  which  was  to  be  a  study;  this 
was  the  architect's  surprise  ;  and  Cesarine  spent  all  her  savings 
with  a  bookseller.  She  had  bought  the  works  of  Bossuet, 
Racine,  Voltaire,  Jean-Jacques  Rousseau,  Montesquieu,  Mo- 
liere,  Buffon,  Fenelon,  Delille,  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre,  La 
Fontaine,  Corneille,  Pascal,  and  La  Harpe ;  in  short,  the 
ordinary  collection  of  classics  to  be  seen  everywhere,  books 
which  her  father  would  never  read.  A  terrible  bookbinder's 
bill  must  of  necessity  be  the  result.  Thouvenin,  that  great 
and  unpunctual  artist  and  binder,  had  undertaken  to  send  the 
books  home  on  the  18th  at  midday.  Cesarine  had  told  her 
uncle  in  confidence  of  her  difficulty,  and  he  had  undertaken 
the  bill.  Cesar's  surprise  for  his  wife  took  the  shape  of  a 
cherry-colored  velvet  gown  trimmed  with  lace;  it  was  of  this 
dress  that  he  had  just  spoken  to  the  daughter,  who  had  been 
his  accomplice.  Mme.  Birotteau's  surprise  for  the  new 
Chevalier  of  Honor  consisted  of  a  pair  of  gold  buckles  and  a 
solitaire-pin.  Finally,  there  was  the  surprise  of  the  new  rooms 
for  the  whole  family,  to  be  followed  in  a  fortnight  by  the 
great  surprise  of  the  bills  to  be  paid. 

After  mature  reflection,  Cesar  decided  that  some  of  the 
invitations  must  be  given  in  person,  and  some  might  be  de- 
livered by  Raguet  in  the  evening.  He  took  a  cab  and  handed 
his  wife  into  it  (his  wife,  whose  beauty  suffered  a  temporary 
eclipse  from  a  hat  and  feathers  and  the  last  new  shawl,  the 
cashmere  shawl  for  which  she  had  longed  for  fifteen  years), 
11 


162  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

and  away  went  the  perfumers  dressed  in  their  best  to  acquit 
themselves  of  twenty-two  calls  in  a  morning. 

Cesar  spared  his  wife  the  difficulties  attendant  on  straining 
the  resources  of  a  bourgeois  household  to  prepare  the  various 
confections  which  the  splendor  of  the  occasion  demanded. 
A  treaty  was  arranged  between  Birotteau  and  the  great  Chevet. 
Chevet  would  furnish  the  dinner  and  the  wines  ;  he  would 
provide  a  splendid  service  of  plate  (which  brings  in  as  much 
as  an  estate  to  its  owner),  and  a  retinue  of  servants  under  the 
command  of  a  sufficiently  imposing  chief  steward,  all  of  them 
responsible  for  their  sayings  and  doings.  Chevet  was  to  take 
up  his  quarters  in  the  kitchen  and  dining-room  on  the  mezza- 
nine floor,  and  not  to  quit  possession  until  he  had  served  up 
a  dinner  for  twenty  persons  at  six  o'clock,  and  a  grand  colla- 
tion an  hour  after  midnight.  The  ices,  to  be  served  in  pretty 
cups  with  silver-gilt  spoons  on  silver  trays,  would  be  supplied 
by  Foy's  Cafe,  and  the  refreshments  by  Tanrade — an  added 
lustre  to  the  feast. 

"  Be  easy,"  Cesar  said  to  his  wife,  who  looked  somewhat 
over-anxious  on  the  day  before  the  great  day,  "  Chevet,  Tan- 
rade, and  the  people  from  Foy's  Cafe  will  occupy  the  mezza- 
nine floor,  Virginie  will  be  on  guard  above,  and  the  store 
shall  be  shut  up.  There  is  nothing  left  for  us  to  do  but  to 
strut  about  on  the  second  floor." 

On  the  16th,  at  two  o'clock,  M.  de  la  Billardiere  came  for 
Cesar.  They  were  to  go  together  to  the  Chancellerie  de  la 
Legion  d'honneur,  where  Birotteau,  with  some  ten  others,  was 
to  be  received  as  a  Chevalier  by  M.  le  Comte  de  Lacepede. 
The  perfumer  had  tears  in  his  eyes  when  the  mayor  came  for 
him ;  the  surprise  which  Constance  had  planned  had  just 
taken  place,  and  Cesar  had  been  presented  with  the  gold 
buckles  and  solitaire. 

"It  is  very  sweet  to  be  so  loved,"  said  he,  as  he  stepped 
into  the  cab  ;  Constance  and  Cesarine  standing  on  the  thresh- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  163 

old,  and  the  assistants  gathered  in  a  group  to  see  him  go. 
All  of  them  gazed  at  Cesar  in  his  silk  stockings  and  black- 
silk  breeches,  and  the  new  coat  of  cornflower-blue  on  which 
the  ribbon  was  about  to  blaze — the  red  ribbon  which,  accord- 
ing to  Molineux,  had  been  steeped  in  blood. 

When  Cesar  came  back  at  dinner-time,  he  was  pale  with 
joy.  He  looked  at  his  cross  in  every  looking-glass,  for  in  his 
first  intoxication  he  could  not  be  content  to  wear  the  ribbon 
only ;  there  was  no  tinge  of  false  modesty  about  his  elation. 

"The  grand  chancellor  is  charming,  dear,"  said  he;  "at 
a  word  from  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere,  he  accepted  my  in- 
vitation ;  he  is  coming  with  Monsieur  Vauquelin.  De  Lace- 
pede  is  a  great  man,  yes,  as  great  as  Vauquelin.  He  has 
written  forty  volumes.  And  then  he  is  a  peer  of  France  as 
well  as  an  author.  We  must  not  forget  to  say  '  Your  Lord- 
ship '  or  '  Monsieur  le  Comte  '  when  we  address  him." 

"  Do  eat  your  dinner,"  remarked  his  wife.  "Your  father 
is  worse  than  a  child,"  Constance  added,  looking  at  Cesarine. 

"  How  nice  that  looks  at  your  button-hole  !  "  said  Cesarine. 
"They  will  present  arms  when  you  pass  ;  we  will  go  out  to- 
gether !  I" 

"  All  the  sentries  will  present  arms  to  me." 

Grindot  and  Braschon  came  downstairs  as  he  spoke.  "  After 
dinner,  sir,  you  and  madame  and  mademoiselle  may  like  to 
look  over  the  rooms  ;  Braschon's  foreman  is  just  putting  up  a 
few  curtain  brackets,  and  three  men  are  lighting  the  candles." 

"You  will  need  a  hundred  and  twenty  candles,"  said 
Braschon. 

"A  bill  for  two  hundred  francs  from  Trudon,"  began 
Mme.  Cesar,  but  a  look  from  the  chevalier  checked  her 
lamentations. 

"Your  fete  will  be  magnificent,  Monsieur  le  Chevalier," 
put  in  Braschon. 

"  Flatterers  already  !  "  Cesar  thought  within  himself.  "The 
good  Abb6  Loraux  enjoined  it  upon  me  not  to  fall  into  their 


164  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

snares  and  to  remain  humble ;  I  will  always  keep  my  origin 
in  mind." 

But  Cesar  did  not  understand  the  drift  of  the  remark  let 
fall  by  the  rich  upholsterer  of  the  Rue  Saint-Antoine. 
Braschon  had  made  a  dozen  futile  efforts  to  secure  invita- 
tions for  himself  and  his  wife,  his  daughter,  aunt,  and 
mother-in-law.  And  so  Cesar  made  an  enemy.  On  the 
threshold,  Braschon  did  not  call  him  again  "  Monsieur  le 
Chevalier." 

Then  came  the  private  view.  Cesar  and  his  wife  and 
Cesarine  went  out  through  the  store  and  came  in  from  the 
street.  The  door  had  been  reconstructed  in  a  grand  style, 
the  two  leaves  were  divided  up  into  square  panels,  and  in 
the  centre  of  each  panel  was  a  cast-iron  ornament,  duly 
painted.  This  kind  of  door,  which  is  now  so  common  in 
Paris,  was  at  that  time  the  very  newest  thing.  Beneath 
the  double  staircase  in  the  vestibule,  opposite  the  door,  in 
the  plinth  which  had  so  disturbed  Cesar's  mind,  a  sort  of 
box  had  been  contrived  where  an  old  woman  could  be  en- 
sconced. The  vestibule,  with  its  black-and-white  marble 
floor  and  its  walls  painted  to  look  like  marble,  was  lighted 
by  a  lamp  of  antique  pattern,  with  four  sockets  for  the 
wicks.  The  architect  had  combined  a  rich  effect  with  ap- 
parent simplicity.  A  narrow  crimson  carpet  relieved  the 
whiteness  of  the  stone.  The  first  landing  gave  access  to  the 
mezzanine  floor.  The  door  on  the  staircase,  which  gave 
access  to  the  second-floor  rooms,  was  in  the  same  style  as 
the  street-door,  but  this  was  a  piece  of  cabinet-work. 

"  How  charming  !  "  said  Cesarine.  "And  yet  there  is  noth- 
ing which  catches  the  eye." 

"  Exactly,  mademoiselle,  the  effect  is  produced  by  the  exact 
proportions  of  the  stylobates,  the  plinths,  the  cornice,  and 
the  ornaments  ;  and  then  I  have  not  employed  gilding  any- 
where ;  the  colors  are  subdued,  and  there  are  no  glaring 
tones.'* 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  165 

"It  is  a  science,"  said  Cesarine. 

Then  they  entered  the  anteroom  ;  it  was  simple,  spacious, 
and  tastefully  decorated  ;  a  parquet  floor  had  been  laid  down. 
The  drawing-room  was  lighted  by  three  windows,  which 
looked  upon  the  street ;  here  the  colors  were  white  and 
red ;  the  outlines  of  the  cornices  were  delicate,  so  was  the 
paint.  There  was  nothing  to  dazzle  the  eyes.  The  orna- 
ments on  the  mantel,  of  white  marble  supported  on  white 
marble  columns,  had  been  carefully  chosen  ;  there  was  noth- 
ing tawdry  about  them,  and  they  were  in  keeping  with  the 
details  of  the  furniture.  In  fact,  throughout  the  room  a  subtle 
harmony  prevailed,  such  as  none  but  an  artist  can  establish, 
by  subordinating  everything,  down  to  the  least  accessories,  to 
the  general  scheme  of  decoration ;  a  harmony  which  strikes 
the  philistine,  though  he  cannot  account  for  it.  The  light 
of  twenty-four  wax-candles  in  the  chandelier  displayed  the 
glories  of  the  crimson-silk  curtains  ;  the  parquet  floor  tempted 
Cesarine  to  dance.  Through  a  green-and-white  boudoir  they 
reached  Cesar's  study. 

"I  have  put  a  bed  here,"  said  Grindot,  throwing  open  the 
doors  of  an  alcove,  cleverly  concealed  between  the  two  book- 
cases. "  Either  you  or  Madame  Birotteau  may  fall  ill,  and  an 
invalid  requires  a  separate  room." 

"  But  the  bookcase  is  full  of  bound  books !  Oh  !  wife, 
wife  !  "  cried  Cesar. 

"No,  this  is  Cesarine's  surprise." 

"Pardon  a  father's  emotion,"  exclaimed  Birotteau,  em- 
bracing his  daughter. 

"Of  course,  of  course,  sir,"  said  Grindot.  "You  are  in 
your  own  house." 

The  prevailing  tone  of  the  study  was  brown,  relieved  by 
green  ;  for  by  skillful  modulations  all  the  rooms  were  brought 
into  harmony  with  each  other.  Thus  the  prevailing  color  of 
one  room  was  more  sparingly  introduced  as  a  subsidiary  in 
another,  and   vice  versd.      The   print  of  "  Hero   and   Le- 


166  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

ander  "  shone  conspicuous  from  a  fine  panel  in  Cesar's  new 
sanctum. 

"And you  are  to  pay  for  all  this?  "  Cesar  said  merrily. 

"  That  beautiful  engraving  is  Monsieur  Anselme's  gift  to 
you,"  said  Cesarine. 

(Anselme,  like  the  others,  had  managed  to  afford  his  sur- 
prise.) 

M  Poor  boy  !  he  has  done  as  I  did  for  Monsieur  Vau- 
quelin." 

Mme.  Birotteau's  room  came  next  in  order.  Here  the  ar- 
chitect had  lavished  splendors  to  please  the  good  folk  whom 
he  wished  to  use  to  his  own  ends.  He  had  promised  to  make 
a  study  of  this  redecoration,  and  he  had  kept  his  word.  The 
room  was  hung  with  blue  silk,  but  the  cords  and  tassels  were 
white  ;  while  the  furniture,  covered  with  white  cashmere,  was 
relieved  with  blue.  The  clock  on  the  white  marble  mantel 
took  the  form  of  a  marble  slab,  on  which  Venus  reclined. 
The  pretty  Wilton  carpet,  of  Eastern  design,  was  the  keynote 
of  Cesarine's  apartment,  a  dainty  little  bedroom  hung  with 
chintz  ;  there  stood  her  piano,  a  pretty  wardrobe  with  a  mirror 
in  it,  a  small  white  bed  with  plain  curtains,  and  all  the  little 
possessions  that  girls  love. 

The  dining-room  lay  behind  Cesar's  study  and  the  blue*- 
and-white  bedroom,  and  was  entered  by  a  door  on  the  stair- 
case. Here  the  decorations  were  in  the  style  known  as  Louis 
XIV.  The  sideboards  were  inlaid  with  brass  and  tortoise- 
shell  ;  there  was  a  boule  clock;  and  the  walls  were  hung  with 
stuffs  and  adorned  with  gilt  studs. 

No  words  can  describe  the  joy  of  these  three  human  beings, 
which  reached  its  height  when  Mine.  Birotteau,  returning  to 
her  room,  found  her  new  dress  lying  there  on  the  bed  ;  the 
cherry-colored  velvet  gown,  trimmed  with  lace,  which  her 
husband  had  given  her.  Virginie  had  stolen  in  on  tiptoe  to 
lay  it  there. 

"  The  rooms  do  you  great  credit,  sir,"  Constance  said,  ad' 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  167 

dressing  Grindot.  "  More  than  a  hundred  people  will  be  here 
to-morrow  evening,  and  you  will  be  complimented  by  every- 
body." 

"I  shall  recommend  you,"  said  Cesar.  "  You  will  meet 
all  the  first-rate  people,  and  you  will  be  better  known  in  a 
single  evening  than  if  you  had  built  a  hundred  houses." 

Constance,  touched  by  what  had  happened,  no  longer 
thought  of  the  expense  or  of  criticising  her  husband,  and  for 
the  following  reasons :  That  morning,  when  Popinot  had 
brought  the ..."  Hero  and  Leander,"  he  had  assured  her  that 
the  Cephalic  Oil  would  be  a  success ;  Constance  had  always 
had  a  high  opinion  of  Popinot's  abilities  and  intelligence,  and 
Popinot  was  working  with  unheard-of  enthusiasm.  The 
money  lavished  by  Birotteau  on  these  extravagancies  might 
amount  to  a  good  round  sum ;  but  the  young  lover  had 
promised  that,  in  six  months'  time,  Birotteau's  share  of  the 
profits  on  the  sales  of  the  oil  would  cover  them.  After  nine- 
teen years  of  apprehension,  it  was  so  sweet  to  put  doubts 
aside  for  a  single  day ;  and  Constance  promised  her  daughter 
that  she  would  not  spoil  her  husband's  joy  by  any  after-thought, 
but  would  give  herself  up  entirely  to  gladness.  So  when  M. 
Grindot  left  them  about  eleven  o'clock,  she  flung  her  arms 
about  her  husband's  neck  and  shed  a  few  tears  of  joy. 

"Ah,  Cesar,"  she  said,  "you  make  me  very  silly  and  very 
happy." 

"  If  it  will  only  last,  you  mean,  do  you  not  ?  "  Cesar  asked, 
smiling. 

"It  will  last;  I  have  no  fear  now,"  said  Mme.  Cesar. 

"  That  is  right ;  you  appreciate  me  at  last." 

Those  who  have  sufficient  greatness  of  character  to  know 
their  weaknesses  will  confess  that  a  poor  orphan  girl  who, 
eighteen  years  ago,  had  been  earning  her  living  behind  the 
counter  of  the  Little  Sailor  in  the  He  Saint-Louis,  and  a  poor 
peasant-lad  who  had  come  on  foot  from  Touraine,  stick  in  hand 
and  with  hobnailed  shoes  on  his  feet,  might  well  feel  gratified 


168  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

and  happy  to  give  such  a  fete  on  an  occasion  so  much  to  their 
credit. 

"  My  God,  I  would  willingly  give  a  hundred  francs  for  a 
visitor,"  cried  Cesar. 

"Monsieur  l'Abbe  Loraux,"  announced  Virginie,  and  the 
abbe  appeared.  The  priest  was  at  this  time  curate  of  Saint- 
Sulpice.  Never  has  the  power  of  the  soul  been  more  plainly 
revealed  than  in  this  reverend  ecclesiastic,  who  left  a  pro- 
found impression  on  the  minds  of  all  those  with  whom  he 
came  in  contact.  The  exercise  of  Catholic  virtues  had  given 
sublimity  to  a  harsh  face,  almost  repellent  in  its  ugliness ;  it 
was  as  if  something  of  the  light  of  heaven  shone  from  it  before 
the  time.  The  influences  of  a  simple  and  sincere  life,  passing 
into  the  blood,  had  modified  those  rugged  features,  the  fires 
of  charity  had  chastened  their  uncouth  outlines.  In  Cla- 
paron's  case,  the  nature  of  the  man  had  stamped  itself  on  his 
face  and  degraded  and  brutalized  it,  but  here  the  grace  of  the 
three  fair  human  virtues,  Hope,  Faith,  and  Charity,  hovered 
about  the  wrinkled  lines.  There  was  a  penetrating  power  in 
his  words,  slowly  and  gently  spoken.  He  dressed  like  other 
priests  in  Paris,  and  allowed  himself  a  chestnut-brown  over- 
coat. No  trace  of  ambition  had  sullied  the  pure  heart,  which 
the  angels  would  surely  bear  to  God  in  its  primitive  inno- 
cence ;  it  had  required  all  the  kindly  urgency  of  the  daughter 
of  Louis  XVI.  to  induce  the  Abbe  Loraux  to  accept  a  benefice 
in  Paris,  and  then  he  had  taken  one  of  the  poorest. 

Just  now  he  looked  somewhat  disquieted  as  he  surveyed 
all  these  splendors ;  he  smiled  at  the  three  before  him  and 
shook  his  head. 

"Children,"  he  said,  "it  is  my  part  to  comfort  those  that 
mourn,  and  not  to  be  present  at  festivals.  I  have  come  to 
thank  Monsieur  Cesar  and  to  congratulate  you.  There  is  only 
one  festival  that  will  bring  me  here — the  marriage  of  this 
pretty  maid." 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later  the  abbe  took  his  leave,  and 


CESAR  BIKOTTEAU.  169 

neither  Cesar  nor  his  wife  had  dared  to  show  him  the  new 
arrangements.  The  sober  apparition  threw  a  few  drops  of 
cold  water  on  Cesar's  joyous  ebullitions. 

They  slept  that  night  amid  the  new  glories,  each  taking 
possession  of  the  little  luxuries  and  pretty  furniture  for  which 
they  had  longed.  Cesarine  helped  her  mother  to  undress 
before  the  mirror  of  the  white  marble  toilet  table ;  Cesar  was 
fain  to  use  his  newly  acquired  superfluities  at  once ;  and  the 
heads  of  all  the  three  were  filled  with  visions  of  the  joys  of  the 
morrow. 

The  next  day,  at  four  o'clock,  they  had  been  to  mass  and 
had  read  vespers;  the  mezzanine  floor  had  been  delivered  over 
to  the  secular  arm,  in  the  shape  of  Chevet's  people,  and  Ce- 
sarine and  her  mother  betook  themselves  to  their  toilets. 
Never  was  costume  more  becoming  to  Mme.  Cesar  than  the 
cherry-colored  velvet  gown  with  the  lace  about  it,  the  short 
sleeves  adorned  with  lappets ;  the  rich  stuff  and  the  glowing 
color  set  off  the  youthful  freshness  of  her  shapely  arms,  the 
dazzling  whiteness  of  her  skin,  the  gracious  outlines  of  her 
neck  and  shoulders.  The  naive  happiness  felt  by  every 
woman  when  she  is  conscious  that  she  looks  at  her  best  lent  a 
vague  sweetness  to  Mme.  Birotteau's  Grecian  profile ;  and  the 
outlines  of  her  face,  finely  cut  as  a  cameo,  appeared  in  all  their 
delicate  beauty.  Cesarine,  in  her  white  crepe  dress,  with  a 
wreath  of  white  roses  in  her  hair  and  a  rose  at  her  waist,  her 
shoulders  and  the  outlines  of  her  bodice  modestly  covered  by 
a  scarf,  turned  Popinot's  head. 

"  These  people  are  eclipsing  us,"  said  Mme.  Roguin  to  her 
husband,  as  she  went  through  the  rooms. 

The  notary's  wife  was  furious.  A  woman  can  always 
measure  the  superiority  or  inferiority  of  a  rival,  and  Mme. 
Roguin  felt  that  she  was  not  as  beautiful  as  Mme.  Cesar. 

"  Pooh,  not  for  long.  In  a  little  while  the  poor  thing  will 
be  ruined,  and  your  carriage  will  splash  the  mud  on  her  as 
she  goes  afoot  through  the  streets." 


170  C/tSAK  BIROTTEAU. 

Vauquelin's  manner  was  perfect.  He  came  with  M.  de 
Lacepede,  who  had  brought  his  colleague  in  his  carriage.  To 
Mme.  Cesar,  in  her  radiant  beauty,  the  two  learned  Acade- 
micians paid  compliments  in  scientific  language. 

"  You  possess  the  secret,  unknown  to  chemistry,  of  retain- 
ing youth  and  beauty,  madame." 

"You  are  in  your  own  house,  so  to  speak,  Monsieur 
l'Academician,"  said  Birotteau.  "Yes,  Monsieur  le  Comte," 
he  went  on,  turning  to  the  Grand  Chancellor  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor,  "  I  owe  my  success  to  Monsieur  Vauquelin.  I 
have  the  honor  of  presenting  to  your  lordship  Monsieur  le 
President  (of  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce).  That  is  Monsieur 
le  Comte  de  Lacepede,  a  peer  of  France,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  men  in  France  beside  ;  he  has  written  forty  volumes," 
he  added,  for  the  benefit  of  Joseph  Lebas,  who  came  with  the 
president. 

The  guests  were  punctual.  The  ordinary  tradesman's 
dinner-party  followed,  abundant  in  good  humor  and  merri- 
ment, and  enlivened  by  the  homely  jokes  that  never  fail  to 
provoke  laughter.  Ample  justice  was  done  to  the  excellent 
dishes,  and  the  wines  were  thoroughly  appreciated.  It  was 
half-past  nine  before  they  went  into  the  drawing-room  for 
coffee,  and  cabs  had  already  begun  to  arrive  with  impatient 
dancers.  An  hour  later  the  rooms  were  full,  and  the  dance 
had  become  a  crush.  M.  de  Lacepede  and  M.  Vauquelin 
went,  in  spite  of  entreaties  from  Cesar,  who  followed  them 
despairingly  to  the  staircase.  He  had  better  fortune  with  the 
elder  Popinot  and  M.  de  la  Billardiere,  who  remained. 

With  the  exception  of  three  women,  Mile.  Fontaine,  Mme. 
Jules,  and  Mme.  Rabourdin,  who  severally  represented  aris- 
tocracy, finance,  and  official  dignities,  and  by  their  brilliant 
beauty,  dress,  and  manner  presented  a  striking  contrast  to  the 
rest  of  the  assembly,  the  toilets  of  the  remainder  were  of  the 
heavy  and  substantial  order,  too  suggestive  of  a  well-lined 
purse,  which  gives  to  a  crowd  of  citizens'  wives  and  daughters 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  171 

a  certain  air  of  vulgarity,  made  cruelly  prominent  in  the  present 
case  by  the  daintiness  and  grace  of  the  three  ladies. 

The  bourgeoisie  of  the  Rue  Saint-Denis  displayed  itself 
majestically  in  the  full  glory  of  its  absurdities  carried  to  the 
burlesque  point.  It  was  that  same  bourgeoisie,  nor  more  nor 
less,  which  tricks  its  offspring  out  in  the  uniform  of  the  Lancers 
or  of  the  National  Guard,  that  buys  "  Victories  and  Con- 
quests," "  The  Old  Soldier  at  the  Plough,"  and  admires  "The 
Pauper's  Funeral,"  which  rejoices  to  go  on  guard,  goes  on 
Sundays  to  the  inevitable  country-house,  is  at  pains  to  acquire 
a  distinguished  air,  and  dreams  of  municipal  honors;  the 
bourgeoisie  that  looks  on  every  one  with  jealous  eyes,  and  yet 
is  kindly,  helpful,  devoted,  warm-hearted,  and  compassionate, 
ready  to  subscribe  for  the  orphan  children  of  a  General  Foy, 
for  the  Greeks  (all  unwitting  of  their  piracies),  for  the  Champ 
d'Asile  when  it  no  longer  exists ;  a  bourgeoisie  that  falls  a 
victim  to  its  own  good  qualities,  and  is  flouted  by  a  social 
superiority  which  marks  a  real  inferiority,  for  an  ignorance  of 
social  conventions  fosters  that  native  kindliness  of  heart ;  a 
bourgeoisie  which  brings  up  frank-hearted  daughters  inured  to 
work,  full  of  good  qualities,  which  are  lost  at  once  if  they 
mingle  with  the  classes  above  them  ;  a  commonsense,  matter- 
of-fact  womankind,  from  among  whom  the  worthy  Chrysale 
should  have  taken  a  wife  ;  that  bourgeoisie,  in  short,  so  admir- 
ably represented  by  the  Matifats,  the  druggists  in  the  Rue  des 
Lombards,  who  had  supplied  the  Queen  of  Roses  for  sixty 
years. 

Mme.  Matifat,  anxious  to  appear  stately,  wore  a  turban  on 
her  head,  and  was  dancing  in  a  heavy  poppy-red  gown  em- 
broidered with  gold,  a  toilet  that  harmonized  with  a  haughty 
countenance,  a  Roman  nose,  and  the  splendors  of  a  crimson 
complexion.  Even  M.  Matifat,  so  glorious  when  the  National 
Gu.ird  was  reviewed,  when  you  might  see  the  chain  and  bunch 
of  seals  blazing  on  his  portly  person  fifty  paces  away,  was 
obscured  by  this  Catherine  II.  of  the  counting-house;  yet  her 


172  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

short,  stout,  spectacled  consort,  with  his  shirt  collar  almost  up 
to  his  ears,  distinguished  himself  by  his  deep  bass  voice  and 
by  the  richness  of  his  vocabulary. 

He  never  said  "  Corneille,"  but  "  the  sublime  Corneille." 
Racine  was  the  "tender  Racine;"  Voltaire,  oh!  Voltaire, 
"  takes  the  second  place  in  every  class,  more  of  a  wit  than  a 
genius,  but  nevertheless  a  man  of  genius!"  Rousseau,  "a 
gloomy,  suspicious  nature,  a  man  overbrimming  with  pride, 
who  ended  by  hanging  himself."  He  related  tedious  stock 
anecdotes  about  Piron,  who  is  looked  upon  as  a  prodigious 
personage  among  the  bourgeoisie.  There  was  a  slight  ten- 
dency to  obscenity  in  Matifat's  conversation;  he  was  an  in- 
fatuated admirer  of  theatrical  divinities ;  and  it  was  even  said 
of  him  that,  in  imitation  of  old  Cardot  and  the  wealthy  Cam- 
usot,  he  kept  a  mistress.  Now  and  then  Mme.  Matifat  would 
hastily  interrupt  him  on  the  brink  of  an  anecdote  by  crying, 
at  the  top  of  her  voice,  "  Mind  what  you  are  going  to  tell  us, 
old  man  !  "  In  familiar  conversation  she  always  addressed 
him  as  "old  man."  The  voluminous  lady  of  the  Rue  des 
Lombards  caused  Mile,  de  Fontaine's  aristocratic  coun- 
tenance to  lose  its  repose ;  the  haughty  damsel  could  not  help 
smiling  when  she  overheard  Mme.  Matifat  say  to  her  husband, 
"  Don't  make  a  rush  for  the  ices,  old  man  ;  it  is  bad  style  !  " 

It  is  harder  to  explain  the  differences  which  distinguish 
the  great  world  from  the  bourgeoisie  than  it  is  for  the  bour- 
geoisie to  efface  them.  The  women,  conscious  of  their  toil- 
ets, felt  that  this  was  a  holiday ;  they  made  no  attempt  to 
conceal  an  enjoyment  which  plainly  showed  that  this  ball  was 
a  great  event  in  their  busy  lives;  while  the  three  women,  each 
of  whom  represented  a  different  higher  social  sphere,  were  at 
that  moment  as  they  would  be  on  the  morrow.  They  did  not 
seem  to  be  dressed  for  the  occasion,  had  no  desire  to  behold 
themselves  amid  the  unaccustomed  marvels  of  their  costume, 
and  showed  no  uneasiness  as  to  its  effect,  which  they  had 
ascertained  once  and  for  all  as  they  put  the  last  touches  to 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  173 

their  ball-dresses  before  the  mirror ;  there  was  no  excitement 
in  their  faces  ;  they  danced  with  the  grace  and  ease  of  move- 
ment which  the  forgotten  sculptors  of  a  bygone  age  caught 
and  recorded  in  their  statues.  But  the  others  bore  the  im- 
press of  daily  toil — toil  showed  itself  in  their  attitude,  in  their 
exaggerated  enjoyment  ;  their  glances  were  naively  curious, 
their  voices  were  not  subdued  to  the  key  of  the  low  murmur 
which  gives  such  an  inimitable  piquancy  to  ballroom  conver- 
sations ;  and,  above  all  things,  they  lacked  the  impertinent 
gravity  which  contains  the  germ  of  epigram,  the  repose  of 
manner  which  marks  those  whose  self-command  is  perfect. 
So  Mme.  Rabourdin,  Mme.  Jules,  and  Mile,  de  Fontaine, 
who  had  expected  infinite  amusement  from  this  perfumer's 
ball,  stood  out  against  the  background  of  citizens'  wives  and 
daughters,  conspicuous  by  their  languid  grace,  by  the  exquisite 
taste  displayed  in  their  toilets,  and  by  their  manner  of  dan- 
cing, even  as  three  principal  performers  at  the  opera  are  set 
off  by  the  rank  and  file  of  supernumeraries  on  the  stage.  Jeal- 
ous and  astonished  eyes  watched  them.  Mme.  Roguin,  Con- 
stance, and  Cesarine  formed  a  link,  as  it  were,  between  these 
three  aristocratic  types  and  the  tradesmen's  womankind. 

At  every  ball  a  moment  comes  when  excitement  or  the 
torrents  of  light,  the  gaiety,  the  music,  and  the  movement  of 
the  dance  carries  away  the  dancers,  and  all  the  shades  of  dif- 
ference are  drowned  in  the  crescendo  of  the  tutti.  In  a  little 
while  the  ball  would  become  a  romp.  Mile,  de  Fontaine  de- 
termined to  go ;  but,  as  she  sought  the  venerable  Vendean 
leader's  arm,  Birotteau  and  his  wife  and  daughter  hastened  to 
prevent  the  defection  of  the  aristocracy  of  their  assembly. 

"There  is  a  perfume  of  good  taste  about  the  rooms  which 
really  surprises  me;  I  congratulate  you  upon  it,"  said  the 
insolent  girl,  addressing  the  perfumer. 

Birotteau  was  too  much  intoxicated  by  the  compliments 
publicly  addressed  to  him  to  understand  this  speech ;  but  his 
wife  flushed  up  and  did  not  know  what  to  answer. 


174  CESAR  BTROTTEAU. 

"  This  is  a  national  festival  which  does  you  honor,"  Camu- 
sot  said. 

"  I  have  seldom  seen  so  fine  a  ball,"  said  Monsieur  de  la 
Billardiere,  an  official  fib  that  cost  him  nothing. 

Birotteau  took  all  the  congratulations  seriously. 

"  What  a  charming  sight,  and  how  good  the  band  is  !  Shall 
you  often  give  us  balls?  "  asked  Mme.  Lebas. 

"What  beautiful  rooms  !  Did  you  plan  them  yourself?" 
inquired  Mme.  Desmarets,  and  Cesar  ventured  on  a  lie,  and 
allowed  it  to  be  thought  that  he  was  the  originator  of  the 
scheme  of  decoration.  Cesarine,  whose  list  of  partners  for 
the  quadrilles  was  of  course  filled  up,  learned  how  much 
delicacy  there  was  in  Anselme's  nature. 

"  If  I  only  listened  to  my  own  wishes,"  he  had  said  in  her 
ear  as  they  arose  from  dinner,  *  I  would  entreat  the  favor  of 
a  quadrille  with  you,  but  my  happiness  would  cost  our  self- 
love  too  dear." 

Cesarine,  who  thought  all  men  who  walked  straight  ungrace- 
ful in  their  gait,  determined  to  open  the  ball  with  Popinot. 
Popinot,  encouraged  by  his  aunt,  who  had  bade  him  be 
bold,  dared  to  speak  of  his  love  during  the  quadrille  to  the 
charming  girl  at  his  side,  but  in  the  roundabout  ways  that 
timid  lovers  take. 

"  My  fortune  depends  on  you,  mademoiselle." 

"And  how?" 

"There  is  but  one  hope  which  can  give  me  the  power  to 
make  it." 

"Then  hope." 

"  Do  you  really  know  all  that  you  have  said  in  those  two 
words?"  asked  Popinot. 

"Hope  for  fortune,"  said  Cesarine,  with  a  mischievous 
smile. 

As  soon  as  the  quadrille  was  over,  Anselme  rushed  to  his 
friend.  "  Gaudissart !  Gaudissart !  succeed,  or  I  shall  blow 
my  brains  out !  "     He  squeezed  his  friend's  arm  in  a  Hercu- 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  175 

lean  grasp.  "Success  means  that  I 'shall  marry  Cesarine. 
She  has  told  me  so;  and  see  how  beautiful  she  is !  " 

"Yes,  she  is  prettily  rigged  out,"  said  Gaudissart;  "and 
she  is  rich.     We  will  do  her  in  oil." 

The  good  understanding  between  Mile.  Lourdois  and 
Alexandre  Crottat  (Roguin's  successor-designate)  did  not 
escape  Mme.  Birotteau,  who  could  not  give  up  without  a  pang 
the  prospect  of  seeing  her  daughter  the  wife  of  a  Paris  notary. 
Uncle  Pillerault,  after  exchanging  a  greeting  with  little  Mol- 
ineux,  took  up  his  quarters  in  an  easy-chair  near  the  bookcase. 
Hence  he  watched  the  card-players,  listened  to  the  talk  about 
him,  and  went  from  time  to  time  to  the  door  to  look  at  the 
moving  flower-garden  as  the  dancers'  heads  swayed  in  the 
figures  of  the  quadrille.  He  turned  a  truly  philosophical 
countenance  on  it  all.  The  men  were  unspeakable,  with  the 
exception  of  du  Tillet,  who  had  already  learned  something  of 
the  manners  of  the  fashionable  world ;  of  young  Billardiere, 
an  incipient  dandy ;  M.  Jules  Desmartes,  and  the  official  per- 
sonages. But  among  the  faces,  all  more  or  less  comical,  which 
gave  the  assembly  its  character,  there  was  one  in  particular, 
worn  into  meaningless  smoothness,  like  the  head  on  a  five- 
franc  piece  issued  by  the  Republic,  but  curious  by  reason  of 
its  association  with  a  suit  of  clothes.  This  person,  it  will 
have  been  guessed,  was  none  other  than  the  petty  tyrant  of 
the  Cour  Batave,  arrayed  in  fine  linen,  yellowed  with  lying- 
by  in  the  press,  displaying  a  shirt  frill  of  venerable  lace, 
secured  by  a  pin  with  a  bluish  cameo.  Short  breeches  of 
black  silk  treacherously  revealed  the  spindle  shanks  on  which 
he  dared  to  repose  his  weight.  Cesar  triumphantly  took  him 
around  the  four  apartments  devised  by  the  architect  on  the 
second  floor  of  his  house. 

"Hey!  hey!  it  is  your  own  affair,  sir,"  said  Molineux, 
"  My  second  floor  done  up  in  this  way  will  be  worth  another 
thousand  crowns." 

Birotteau  turned  this  off  with  a  joke,  but  the  little  old 


176  CESAR  BIROTTEAV. 

man's  words  and  tone  had  been  like  the  prick  of  a  needle. 
"  I  shall  soon  have  my  second  floor  again  ;  this  man  is  ruin- 
ing himself!  "  that  was  the  underlying  sense  of  that  "  will  be 
worth"  which  had  been  a  sudden  revelation  of  Molineux's 
claws. 

The  pale,  meagre  face  and  cruel  eyes  struck  du  Tillet,  whose 
attention  had  been  called  to  the  landlord  in  the  first  instance 
by  the  watch-chain  from  which  a  pound  weight  of  trinkets 
hung  and  jingled,  the  green  coat  with  white  threads  in  it,  and 
the  odd-looking,  turned-up  collar,  which  gave  the  old  man 
somewhat  the  appearance  of  a  rattlesnake.  So  the  banker 
went  over  to  the  little  money-lender  to  learn  how  he  came  to 
be  at  a  merry-making. 

"  Here,  sir,"  said  Molineux,  putting  a  foot  into  the  boudoir, 
"  I  am  on  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  Granville's  property,  but 
here  "  (he  pointed  to  the  other  foot)  "  I  am  on  my  own,  for 
this  house  belongs  to  me." 

And  Molineux,  more  than  willing  to  gratify  the  only  one 
who  had  a  mind  to  listen  to  him,  was  so  charmed  with  du 
Tillet's  attentive  attitude  that  he  described  himself  and  gave 
an  account  of  his  habits,  together  with  a  complete  history  of 
the  sauciness  of  Master  Gendrin  and  an  exact  relation  of  his 
transactions  with  the  perfumer,  without  which  transaction  the 
ball  would  not  have  taken  place. 

"Ah  !  so  Monsieur  Cesar  has  paid  his  rent  beforehand," 
said  du  Tillet  ;   "  nothing  is  more  contrary  to  his  habits." 

"  Oh  !  I  asked  him  to  do  so  ;  I  am  so  accommodating  with 
my  tenants  !  " 

"  If  old  Birotteau  goes  bankrupt,"  thought  du  Tillet,  "that 
little  rogue  will  certainly  make  a  capital  assignee.  Such  cap*- 
tiousness  is  not  often  met  with  ;  he  must  amuse  himself  at 
home,  like  Domitian,  by  killing  flies  when  he  is  alone." 

Du  Tillet  betook  himself  to  the  card-tables,  where  Claparon 
(by  his  orders)  had  already  taken  his  post.  Du  Tillet  thought 
that,  screened  by  a  lamp-shade,  at  bouillotte,  his  dummy- 


CASAR  B1R0TTEAU.  177 

banker  would  escape  all  scrutiny.  As  they  sat  opposite  one 
another,  they  looked  such  perfect  strangers  that  the  most  sus- 
picious observer  could  have  discovered  no  sign  of  an  under- 
standing between  them.  Gaudissart,  who  knew  that  Claparon 
had  risen  in  the  world,  did  not  dare  to  approach  him  ;  the 
wealthy  ex-commercial  traveler  had  given  him  the  portentously 
cool  stare  of  an  upstart  who  does  not  care  to  be  claimed  by 
an  old  acquaintance. 

Toward  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  ball  came  to  an 
end,  like  a  spent  rocket.  By  that  time  there  only  remained 
some  forty  cabs  out  of  a  hundred  or  more  which  had  filled 
the  Rue  Saint-Honore  ;  and  in  the  ballroom  they  were  dan- 
cing the  boulangere,  which  later  was  succeeded  by  the  cotillon 
and  the  English  galop.  Du  Tillet,  Roguin,  young  Cardot, 
Jules  Desmarets,  and  the  Comte  de  Granville  were  playing 
bouillotte.  Du  Tillet  had  won  three  thousand  francs.  The 
light  of  the  wax-candles  was  growing  pale  in  the  dawn  when 
the  card-players  rose  to  join  in  the  last  quadrille. 

In  bourgeois  houses  this  supreme  enjoyment  never  comes  to 
an  end  without  some  enormities.  Those  who  imposed  awe 
or  restraint  on  the  others  are  gone  ;  the  intoxication  of  move- 
ment, the  hot  rooms,  the  spirits  that  lurk  in  the  most  harm- 
less beverages,  relax  the  stiffness  of  the  dowagers,  who  allow 
themselves  to  be  drawn  into  the  quadrilles,  and  yield  to  the 
excitement  of  the  moment ;  men  are  heated,  the  lank  hair 
comes  down  over  their  faces,  and  their  grotesque  appearance 
provokes  laughter ;  the  younger  women  grow  frivolous,  flowers 
have  fallen  here  and  there  from  their  hair.  Then  it  is  that 
the  bourgeois  Momus  enters,  followed  by  his  antic  crew ! 
Laughter  breaks  out  in  peals,  and  every  one  gives  himself  up 
to  the  merriment,  thinking  that  with  morning  labor  will  re- 
sume its  sway  over  him.  Matifat  was  dancing  with  a  woman's 
hat  on  his  head  ;  Celestin  was  indulging  in  burlesque  move- 
ments. A  few  of  the  ladies  clapped  their  hands  noisily  when 
they  changed  the  figures  of  the  interminable  quadrille. 
12 


178  CASAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"How  they  are  enjoying  themselves!"  said  the  happy 
Birotteau. 

"If  only  they  break  nothing,"  said  Constance,  who  stood 
by  Uncle  Pillerault. 

"  You  have  given  the  most  magnificent  ball  that  I  have 
seen,  and  I  have  seen  many,"  said  du  Tillet,  with  a  bow  to 
his  late  employer. 

There  is  in  one  of  Beethoven's  eight  symphonies  a  fantasia 
like  a  great  poem;  it  is  the  culminating  point  of  the  finale 
of  the  symphony  in  C  minor.  When,  after  the  slow  prep- 
aration of  the  mighty  magician,  so  well  understood  by 
Habeneck,  the  rich  curtain  rises  on  this  scene ;  when  the 
bow  of  the  enthusiastic  leader  of  the  orchestra  calls  forth  the 
dazzling  motif,  through  which  the  whole  gathered  force  of  the 
music  flows,  the  poet,  as  his  heart  beats  fast,  will  understand 
that  this  ball  was  in  Birotteau's  life  like  this  moment  when 
his  own  imagination  feels  the  quickening  power  of  the  music, 
of  this  motif,  which  in  itself,  perhaps,  raises  the  symphony  in 
C  minor  above  its  glorious  sisters.  For  a  radiant  fairy  springs 
up  and  waves  her  wand,  and  you  hear  the  rustling  of  the 
purple  silken  curtains  raised  by  angels ;  the  golden  doors, 
carved  like  the  bronze  gates  of  the  baptistery  in  Florence, 
turn  upon  their  hinges  of  adamant,  and  your  eyes  wander 
over  far-off  glories  and  vistas  of  fairy  palaces.  Forms  not 
of  this  earth  glide  among  them,  the  incense  of  prosperity 
rises,  the  fire  is  kindled  on  the  altar  of  fortune,  the  scented 
air  circles  about  it.  Beings  clad  in  white  blue-bordered  tunics 
smile  divinely  as  they  float  before  your  eyes,  shapes  delicate 
and  ethereal  beyond  expression  turn  faces  of  unearthly  beauty 
upon  you.  The  Loves  hover  in  the  air,  filling  it  with  the 
flames  of  their  torches.  You  feel  that  you  are  loved ;  you 
are  glad  with  a  joy  that  you  drink  in  without  comprehending 
it  as  you  bathe  in  the  floods  of  a  torrent  of  harmony  which 
pours  out  for  each  the  nectar  of  his  choice ;  for,  as  the  music 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAIT.  179 

slides  into  your  inmost  soul,  its  desires  are  realized  for  a 
moment.  Then  when  you  have  walked  for  a  while  in  heaven, 
the  enchanter  plunges  you  back,  by  some  deep  and  mysterious 
transition  of  the  bass,  into  the  morass  of  chill  reality,  only 
to  draw  you  thence  when  he  has  awakened  in  you  a  thirst  for 
his  divine  melodies,  and  your  soul  cries  out  to  hear  those 
sounds  again.  The  history  of  the  soul  at  the  most  glorious 
point  in  that  beautiful  finale  is  the  history  of  the  sensations 
which  this  festival  brought  in  abundance  for  Constance  and 
Cesar.  But  it  was  no  Beethoven,  but  a  Collinet,  who  had 
composed  upon  his  flute  the  finale  of  their  commercial 
symphony. 

The  three  Birotteaus,  tired  but  happy,  slept  that  morning 
with  the  sounds  of  the  festival  ringing  in  their  ears.  The 
building,  repairs,  furniture,  banquets,  toilets,  and  Cesarine's 
library  (for  the  money  had  been  repaid  her)  had  altogether 
raised  the  expense  of  that  entertainment,  without  Cesar  hav- 
ing a  suspicion  of  it,  to  sixty  thousand  francs.  So  much 
did  that  luckless  red  ribbon,  fastened  by  the  King  to  a  per- 
fumer's button-hole,  cost  the  wearer.  If  any  misfortune 
should  befall  Cesar  Birotteau,  this  extravagance  of  his  was 
like  to  bring  him  into  serious  trouble  at  the  police  court ;  a 
merchant  lays  himself  open  to  a  term  of  two  years'  imprison- 
ment if,  on  examination,  his  expenses  are  considered  excessive. 
It  is,  perhaps,  more  unpleasant  to  go  to  the  sixth  chamber  for 
simple  bad  management  or  for  a  foolish  trifle,  than  to  come 
before  a  court  of  assize  for  a  gigantic  fraud  ;  and  in  some 
people's  eyes  it  is  better  to  be  a  knave  than  a  fool. 


II. 

CESAR  STRUGGLES   WITH   MISFORTUNE. 

A  week  after  the  ball,  that  final  flare  of  the  straw-fire  of  a 
prosperity  which  had  lasted  for  eighteen  years  and  now  was 
about  to  die  out  in  darkness,  Cesar  stood  watching  the  passers- 
by.  through  his  store  window.  He  was  thinking  of  the  wide 
extent  of  his  business  affairs,  and  found  them  almost  more 
than  he  could  manage.  Hitherto  his  life  had  been  quite 
simple;  he  manufactured  and  sold  his  goods,  or  he  bought  to 
sell  again.  But  now  there  was  the  speculation  in  building 
land,  and  his  own  share  in  the  enterprise  of  A.  Popinot  & 
Company,  beside  a  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  francs'  worth 
of  bills  to  meet.  Before  long  he  would  be  compelled  to 
discount  some  of  his  customers'  bills  (and  his  wife  would  not 
like  it),  or  there  must  be  an  unheard-of  success  on  Popinot's 
part ;  altogether,  the  poor  man  had  so  many  things  to  think 
of  that  he  felt  as  if  he  had  more  skeins  to  wind  than  he 
could,  hold. 

How  would  Anselme  steer  his  course  ?  Birotteau  treated 
Popinot  much  as  a  professor  of  rhetoric  treats  a  student ;  he 
felt  little  confidence  in  his  capacity,  and  was  sorry  that  he 
could  not  be  always  on  hand  to  look  after  him.  The  admon- 
itory kick  bestowed  on  Anselme's  shins  by  way  of  a  recom- 
mendation to  hold  his  tongue  in  Vauquelin's  presence  will 
illustrate  the  fears  which  the  perfumer  felt  as  to  the  newly 
started  business.  Birotteau  was  very  careful  to  hide  his  thoughts 
from  his  wife  and  daughter  and  from  his  assistant;  but  within 
himself  he  felt  as  a  Seine  boatman  might  feel  if  by  some  freak 
of  fortune  a  minister  should  give  him  the  command  of  a 
frigate.  Such  thoughts  as  these,  rising  like  a  fog  in  his  brain, 
(180) 


CJESAR   BIROTTEAU.  181 

were  but  little  favorable  to  clear  thinking;  he  stood,  there- 
fore, trying  to  see  things  distinctly  in  his  own  mind. 

Just  at  that  moment  a  figure,  for  which  he  felt  an  intense 
aversion,  appeared  in  the  street ;  he  beheld  his  second  land- 
lord, little  Molineux.  Everybody  knows  those  dreams  in 
which  events  are  so  crowded  together  that  we  pass  through  a 
whole  lifetime,  dreams  in  which  a  fantastical  being  reappears 
from  time  to  time,  always  as  the  bearer  of  bad-tidings — the 
villain  of  the  piece.  It  seemed  to  Birotteau  that  fate  had 
sent  Molineux  to  play  a  similar  part  in  his  waking  life.  That 
countenance  had  grinned  diabolically  at  him  when  the  feast 
was  at  its  height,  and  had  turned  an  evil  eye  on  the  splendor; 
and  now,  when  Cesar  saw  it  again,  he  remembered  the  impres- 
sion which  the  "little  curmudgeon"  (to  use  his  own  expres- 
sion) had  given  him  but  so  much  the  more  vividly,  because 
Molineux  had  given  him  a  fresh  feeling  of  repulsion  by  sud- 
denly breaking  in  upon  his  musings. 

"Sir,"  said  the  little  old  man  in  his  vampire's  voice,  "we 
did  this  business  in  such  an  off-hand  fashion  that  you  forgot 
to  approve  the  additions  to  this  little  private  covenant  of 
ours." 

As  Birotteau  took  up  the  lease  to  repair  the  omission,  the 
architect  came  in,  bowed  to  the  perfumer,  and  hovered  about 
him  with  a  diplomatic  air. 

"You  know,  sir,  the  difficulties  at  the  outset  when  you  are 
starting  in  business,"  he  said  at  last  in  Birotteau's  ear;  "  you 
are  satisfied  with  me;  you  would  oblige  me  very  much  by 
paying  my  honorarium  at  once." 

Birotteau,  who  had  paid  away  all  his  ready  money  and 
emptied  his  portfolio,  told  Celestin  to  draw  a  bill  for  two 
thousand  francs  at  three  months  and  a  form  of  receipt. 

"  It  is  a  very  lucky  thing  for  me  that  you  undertook  to  pay 
the  quarter  which  your  next-door  neighbor  owed,"  said  Mol- 
ineux, with  malicious  cunning  in  his  smile.  "  My  porter  has 
been  around  to  tell  me  that  the  authorities  have  been  affixing 


182  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

seals  to  his  property,  because  Master  Cayron  has  disappeared 
from  the  scene." 

"  If  only  they  don't  come  down  on  me  for  the  five  thousand 
francs  !  "  thought  Birotteau. 

"People  thought  that  he  was  doing  very  well,"  said 
Lourdois,  who  had  just  come  in  to  hand  his  statement  to 
the  perfumer. 

"No  one  in  business  is  quite  safe  from  reverses  until  he 
retires,"  remarked  little  Molineux,  folding  up  his  document 
with  punctilious  neatness. 

The  architect  watched  the  little  old  creature  with  the 
pleasure  that  every  artist  feels  at  the  sight  of  a  living  caricature 
which  confirms  his  prejudices  against  the  bourgeoisie. 

"  When  you  hold  an  umbrella  over  your  head,  you  generally 
suppose  that  it  is  sheltered  if  it  rains,"  he  observed. 

Molineux  looked  harder  at  the  architect's  mustache  and 
"imperial"  than  at  his  face,  and  the  contempt  that  he  felt 
for  Grindot  quite  equaled  Grindot's  contempt  for  him.  He 
stayed  on  to  give  the  architect  a  parting  scratch.  By  dint  of 
living  with  his  cats  there  had  come  to  be  something  feline  in 
Molineux's  ways  as  well  as  in  his  eyes. 

Just  at  that  moment  Ragon  and  Pillerault  came  in  together. 

"  We  have  been  talking  over  this  business  with  the  judge," 
Ragon  said  in  Cesar's  ear.  "  He  says  that  in  a  speculation 
of  this  kind  we  must  actually  complete  the  purchase  and  have 
a  receipt  from  the  vendors  if  we  are  really  to  be  severally 
propriet " 

"Oh!  are  you  in  the  affair  of  the  Madeleine?"  asked 
Lourdois.  "  People  are  talking  about  it ;  there  will  be  houses 
to  build!" 

The  house-painter  had  come  to  ask  for  a  prompt  settlement, 
but  he  found  it  to  his  interest  not  to  press  the  perfumer. 

"  I  have  sent  in  my  statement  because  it  is  the  end  of  the 
year,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice  for  Cesar's  benefit;  "I  do  not 
want  anything." 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  183 

"Well,  what  is  it,  Cesar?"  asked  Pillerault,  noticing  his 
nephew's  surprise ;  for  Cesar,  overcome  by  the  sight  of  the 
statement,  made  no  answer  to  either  Ragon  or  Lourdois. 

"Oh!  a  trifle;  I  took  five  thousand  francs  of  bills  from  a 
neighbor,  the  umbrella  dealer,  who  is  bankrupt.  If  he  has 
given  me  bad  paper,  I  shall  be  caught  like  a  simpleton." 

"Why,  I  told  you  so  long  ago,"  cried  Ragon;  "a  drown- 
ing man  will  catch  hold  of  his  father's  leg  to  save  himself, 
and  drag  him  down  with  him.  I  have  seen  so  much  of  bank- 
ruptcies !  A  man  is  not  exactly  a  rogue  to  begin  with  ;  but, 
when  he  gets  into  trouble,  he  is  forced  to  become  one." 

"True,"  said  Pillerault. 

"  Ah  !  if  I  ever  get  as  far  as  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  or 

have  some  influence  with  Government "  said  Birotteau, 

rising  on  tiptoe  and  sinking  back  again  on  his  heels. 

"  What  will  you  do?  "  asked  Lourdois.  "  You  are  a  wise 
man." 

Molineux,  always  interested  by  a  discussion  on  law,  stayed 
in  the  store  to  listen  ;  and,  as  the  attention  paid  by  others  is 
infectious,  Pillerault  and  Ragon,  who  knew  Cesar's  opinions, 
listened  none  the  less  with  as  much  gravity  as  the  three 
strangers. 

"I  should  have  a  Tribunal  and  a  permanent  bench  of 
judges,"  said  Cesar,  "and  a  public  prosecutor  for  criminal 
cases.  After  an  examination,  made  by  a  judge  who  should 
discharge  the  functions  of  agents  by  procuration  trustees  and 
registrar,  the  trader  should  be  declared  temporarily  insolvent 
or  a  fraudulent  bankrupt.  In  the  first  case,  he  should  be 
bound  over  to  pay  his  creditors  in  full  ;  to  that  end,  he  should 
be  trustee  for  his  own  and  his  wife's  property  (for  everything 
he  had,  or  might  inherit,  would  belong  to  his  creditors)  ;  he 
should  manage  his  estate  for  their  benefit  and  under  their  in- 
spection ;  in  fact,  he  should  carry  on  the  business  for  them, 
signing  his  name,  in  every  case,  as  '  such  a  one,  in  liquidation ,' 
until  everybody  was  paid  in  full.     But  if  he  were  made  a  bank- 

G 


184  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

nipt,  he  should  be  condemned  to  stand  in  the  pillory  in  the 
Exchange  for  a  couple  of  hours,  as  they  used  to  do,  with  a 
green  cap  on  his  head.  His  own  property  and  his  wife's,  and 
his  interest  in  any  other  estate,  should  be  forfeit  to  his 
creditors,  and  he  should  be  banished  the  kingdom." 

"Business  would  be  a  little  safer,"  said  Lourdois ;  "people 
would  think  twice  before  going  into  a  speculation." 

"  The  law  as  it  stands  is  never  carried  out,"  cried  Cesar, 
lashing  himself  up ;  "more  than  fifty  merchants  out  of  a  hun- 
dred could  only  pay  seventy-five  per  cent.,  or  they  sell  goods 
at  twenty-five  per  cent,  below  invoice  price  and  spoil  trade  in 
that  way." 

"  Monsieur  Birotteau  is  in  the  right,"  said  Molineux;  "  the 
law  allows  far  too  much  latitude.  The  entire  estate  should 
be  made  over  to  the  creditors,  or  the  man  should  be  dis- 
graced." 

"  Bother  take  it,"  said  Cesar,  "  at  the  rate  at  which  things 
are  going,  a  merchant  will  become  a  licensed  robber.  By 
signing  his  name  he  can  dip  in  any  one's  purse." 

"You  are  severe,  Monsieur  Birotteau,"  said  Lourdois. 

"He  is  right,"  said  old  Ragon. 

"Every  man  who  fails  is  a  suspicious  character,"  Cesar 
went  on,  exasperated  by  the  little  loss  which  rang  in  his  ears; 
it  was  like  the  huntsman's  first  distant  halloo  to  a  stag. 

As  he  spoke,  Chevet's  steward  brought  his  invoice,  a  pastry- 
cook's boy  from  Felix  and  the  Cafe  Foy  arrived,  together 
with  the  clarionet-player  of  Collinet's  band,  each  with  an 
account. 

"The  'Rabelais'  quarter-of-an-hour,'  "  smiled  Ragon. 

"  My  word,  that  was  a  splendid  fete  of  yours,"  said  Lourdois. 

"I  am  busy,"  Cesar  said,  and  the  messengers  departed, 
leaving  their  invoices. 

"Monsieur  Grindot,"  said  Lourdois,  who  noticed  that  the 
architect  was  folding  up  a  bill  which  bore  Cesar's  signature, 
"you  will  check  my  account  and  see  that  it  is  all  in  order; 


CJESAR   BIROTTEAU.  185 

you  need  do  nothing  more  than  run  through  it,  all  the  prices 
have  been  agreed  to  on  Monsieur  Birotteau's  behalf." 

Pillerault  looked  at  Lourdois  and  Grindot. 

"  If  architect  and  contractor  settle  the  prices  between  them, 
you  are  being  robbed,"  he  said  in  his  nephew's  ear. 

Grindot  went  out.  Molineux  followed  and  came  up  to  him 
with  a  mysterious  expression. 

"  Sir,"  he  remarked,  "  you  heard  what  I  said,  but  you  did 
not  take  my  meaning ;  I  wish  you  an  umbrella  when  it  comes 
on  to  rain." 

Fear  seized  on  Grindot.  A  man  clings  all  the  more  tightly 
to  gain  which  is  not  lawfully  his  ;  such  is  human  nature.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  too,  this  had  been  a  labor  of  love  for  the 
artist  ;  he  had  given  all  his  time  and  his  utmost  skill  to  the 
alterations  of  the  rooms ;  he  had  done  five  times  as  much  as 
he  had  been  paid  for,  and  had  fallen  a  victim  to  his  own  self- 
love.  The  contractors  had  had  little  difficulty  in  tempting 
him.  And,  beside  the  irresistible  argument,  there  was  a 
menace,  understood  though  not  expressed,  of  doing  him  an 
injury  by  slandering  him,  and  there  was  a  yet  more  cogent 
reason  for  yielding — the  remark  that  Lourdois  made  as  to  the 
building  land  near  the  Madeleine.  Clearly,  Birotteau  did 
not  mean  to  put  up  a  single  house ;  he  was  only  speculating  in 
land. 

Architects  and  contractors  are  in  somewhat  the  same  rela- 
tive positions  as  actors  and  dramatists  ;  they  are  dependent 
on  each  other.  Grindot,  to  whom  Birotteau  left  the  settle- 
ment of  the  charges,  was  for  the  handicraftsman  as  against 
the  citizen-householder.  So  the  end  of  it  was  that  three  large 
contractors — Lourdois,  Chaffaroux,  and  Thorien  the  carpenter 
— declared  him  to  be  "one  of  those  good  fellows  for  whom 
it  is  a  pleasure  to  work."  Grindot  foresaw  that  the  accounts 
on  which  he  was  to  have  his  share  would  be  paid,  like  his  own 
fee,  by  bills;  and  this  little  old  man  had  given  him  doubts  as 
to  whether  those  bills  would  be  met,     Grindot  was  prepared 


186  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

to  show  no  mercy ;  after  the  manner  of  artists,  the  most  ruth- 
less enemies  of  the  bourgeois. 

By  the  end  of  December,  Cesar  had  invoices  for  sixty  thou- 
sand francs.  Felix,  the  Cafe  Foy,  Tanrade,  and  others,  to 
whom  small  amounts  were  owing  which  must  be  paid  in  cash, 
had  sent  three  times  for  the  money.  In  business  these  small 
trifles  do  more  harm  than  a  heavy  loss ;  they  set  rumors  in 
circulation.  A  loss  which  every  one  knows  is  a  definite  thing, 
but  panic  knows  no  limits.     Birotteau's  safe  was  empty. 

Then  fear  seized  on  the  perfumer.  Such  a  thing  had  never 
happened  before  in  his  business  career.  Like  all  people  who 
have  almost  forgotten  their  struggles  with  poverty,  and  have 
little  strength  of  character,  this  incident — a  daily  occurrence 
in  the  lives  of  most  petty  storekeepers  in  Paris — troubled 
Cesar's  brain. 

He  told  Celestin  to  send  in  invoices  to  his  own  customers ; 
such  an  unheard-of  order  had  to  be  repeated  twice  before  the 
astonished  first  assistant  understood  it.  The  "clients" — 
the  grand  name  that  storekeepers  used  to  apply  to  their  cus- 
tomers, and  retained  by  Cesar  in  speaking  of  them,  in  spite 
of  his  wife,  who  had  yielded  at  last  with  a  "  Call  them  what 
you  like,  so  long  as  they  pay  us" — the  "clients"  were 
wealthy  people,  who  paid  when  they  pleased  ;  in  Cesar's  busi- 
ness there  were  no  bad  debts,  though  the  outstanding  accounts 
often  amounted  to  fifty  or  sixty  thousand  francs.  The  second 
assistant  took  the  invoice-book  and  began  to  copy  out  the 
largest  amounts.  Cesar  stood  in  fear  of  his  wife.  He  did 
not  wish-her  to  see  his  prostration  beneath  the  simoom  of  mis- 
fortune, so  he  determined  to  go  out. 

"Good-day,  sir,"  said  Grindot,  coming  in  with  the  careless 
air  that  artists  assume  when  they  talk  of  business  matters,  to 
which  they  say  they  are  entirely  unaccustomed.  "  I  cannot 
obtain  ready  money  of  any  sort  or  description  for  your  paper, 
so  I  am  compelled  to  ask  you  to  give  me  cash  instead.  It  is 
a  most  unfortunate  thing  for  me  that  I  must  take  this  step; 


CESAR  BIROTTEAV.  187 

but  I  have  not  been  to  the  money-lenders  about  it ;  I  should 
not  like  to  hawk  your  name  about;  I  know  enough  of  busi- 
ness to  know  that  it  would  be  casting  a  slur  on  it ;  so  it  is 
to  your  own  interest  to " 

"  Speak  lower,  sir,  if  you  please,"  said  Birotteau  in  bewil- 
derment.    "  I  am  very  much  surprised  at  this." 

Lourdois  came  in. 

"Here,  Lourdois,"  said  Birotteau  with  a  smile,  "do  you 

know  about  this? "  he  stopped  short.     With    the  good 

faith  of  a  merchant  who  feels  secure,  the  poor  man  had  been 
about  to  ask  Lourdois  to  take  Grindot's  bill,  by  way  of 
laughing  at  the  architect ;  but  he  saw  a  cloud  on  Lourdois' 
brow,  and  trembled  at  his  own  imprudence.  The  harmless 
joke  was  the  death-knell  of  a  credit  not  above  suspicion.  In 
such  a  case  a  rich  merchant  takes  back  his  bill ;  he  does  not 
offer  it.  Birotteau  felt  dizzy ;  it  was  as  if  a  stroke  of  a  pick- 
axe had  laid  open  the  pit  which  yawned  at  his  feet. 

"  My  dear  Monsieur  Birotteau,"  said  Lourdois,  retiring 
with  him  to  the  back  of  the  store,  "  my  account  has  been 
checked  and  passed  ;  I  must  ask  you  to  have  the  money  ready 
for  me  by  to-morrow.  My  daughter  is  going  to  be  married 
to  young  Crottat ;  he  wants  money,  and  notaries  will  not  wait 
and  bargain  ;  beside,  no  one  has  ever  seen  my  name  on  a 
bill." 

"You  can  send  round  the  day  after  to-morrow,"  said  Birot- 
teau stiffly  (he  counted  on  the  payment  of  the  invoices). 
"And  you  also,  sir,"  he  spoke  to  Grindot. 

"  Why  can  I  not  have  it  at  once  ?  "  asked  the  architect. 

"  I  have  my  men's  wages  to  pay  in  the  Faubourg,"  said 
Cesar,  who  had  never  told  a  lie. 

He  took  up  his  hat  to  go  with  them  ;  but  the  bricklayer 
came  in  with  Thorien  and  Chaffaroux,  and  stopped  him  just 
as  he  shut  the  door. 

"We  really  want  the  money,  sir,"  said  Chaffaroux. 

"Eh  !     I  haven't  the  wealth  of  the  Indies,"  cried  Cesar, 


188  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

out  of  patience  ;  and  he  quickly  put  a  hundred  paces  between 
himself  and  the  three  visitors.  "  There  is  something  under- 
neath all  this.  Confound  the  ball  !  Everybody  takes  you 
for  a  millionaire.  Still,  there  was  something  very  strange 
about  Lourdois,"  he  thought;  "there  is  some  snake  in  the 
hedge." 

He  went  along  the  Rue  Saint-Honore  without  thinking 
where  he  was  going,  feeling  at  a  very  low  ebb,  when  at  a 
corner  of  the  street  he  ran  up  against  Alexandre  Crottat,  like 
a  battering-ram,  or  as  one  mathematician  absorbed  in  the 
working  of  a  problem  might  collide  with  another. 

"Ah  !  sir,"  exclaimed  the  future  notary,  "  one  word  with 
you  !  Did  Roguin  pay  over  your  four  hundred  thousand 
francs  to  Monsieur  Claparon  ?  " 

"You  were  there  when  the  thing  was  done.  Claparon 
gave  me  no  receipt  of  any  kind  ;  my  bills  were  to  be  nego- 
tiated.    Roguin  ought  to  have  paid  them  to  him my  two 

hundred  and  forty  thousand  francs  in  coin.  He  was  told  that 
the  money  was  to  be  paid  down  and  the  transaction  com- 
pleted. Popinot  of  the  Tribunal  says — —  The  vendor's 
receipt  !     But what  makes  you  ask  the  question  ?  " 

"What  makes  me  ask  you  such  a  question?  To  know 
whether  your  two  hundred  thousand  francs  are  in  Claparon's 
hands  or  Roguin's.  Roguin  is  such  an  old  acquaintance  of 
yours  that  he  might  have  scrupled  to  take  your  money,  and 
handed  it  over  to  Claparon  ;  if  so,  you  will  have  had  a  narrow 
escape  !  But  how  stupid  I  am  !  He  has  made  off  with  them, 
for  he  has  Claparon's  money;  luckily,  Claparon  had  only  paid 
a  hundred  thousand  francs.  Roguin  has  absconded  ;  I  myself 
paid  him  a  hundred  thousand  francs  for  his  practice  without 
taking  a  receipt ;  I  gave  it  him  as  I  might  give  my  purse  to 
you  to  keep  for  me.  Your  vendors  have  not  been  paid  a 
stiver ;  they  have  just  been  round  to  see  me.  The  money 
you  raised  on  your  land  has  no  existence  for  you,  nor  for  the 
man  of  whom  you  borrowed  it ;  Roguin  had  swallowed  it  like 


CESAR  B1R0TTEAU.  189 

your  hundred  thousand  francs  ;  which  er — he  has  not  had 
this  long  while.  And  he  has  taken  your  last  payment  of  a 
hundred  thousand  francs  with  him  too  ;  I  remember  going  to 
the  bank  for  the  money." 

The  pupils  of  Cesar's  eyes  dilated  so  widely  that  he  could 
see  nothing  but  red  flames  before  him. 

"Your  draft  on  the  bank  for  a  hundred  thousand  francs,  a 
hundred  thousand  francs  of  mine  paid  for  the  practice,  and 
a  hundred  thousand  francs  belonging  to  M.  Claparon — three 
hundred  thousand  francs  gone  like  smoke,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  defalcations  that  have  yet  to  be  found  out,"  the  young 
notary  went  on.  "  They  feared  for  Madame  Roguin's  life  ; 
Monsieur  du  Tillet  spent  the  night  beside  her.  Du  Tillet 
himself  has  had  a  narrow  escape  !  Roguin  has  been  pestering 
him  this  month  past  to  draw  him  into  the  Madeleine  specula- 
tion, but,  luckily,  all  his  capital  was  locked  up  in  some  pro- 
ject of  the  Nucingens.  Roguin  wrote  his  wife  a  frightful 
letter.  I  have  just  seen  it.  For  five  years  he  has  been  gam- 
bling with  his  clients'  money,  and  why?  To  spend  it  on  a 
mistress — the  Beautiful  Dutchwoman  ;  he  left  her  a  fortnight 
before  he  made  this  stroke.  She  had  squandered  till  she  had 
not  a  farthing  ;  her  furniture  was  sold  ;  she  had  put  her  name 
on  bills  of  exchange.  Then  she  hid  from  her  creditors  in  a 
house  in  the  Palais-Royal,  and  was  murdered  there  last  even- 
ing by  an  officer  in  the  army.  Heaven  soon  dealt  the  punish- 
ment to  her  who,  beyond  a  doubt,  had  run  through  Roguin's 
fortune.  There  are  women  to  whom  nothing  is  sacred ;  think 
of  squandering  away  a  notary's  practice  ! 

"Madame  Roguin  will  having  nothing  except  what  has 
been  secured  to  her  by  her  legal  mortgage,  and  all  the 
scoundrel's  property  has  been  mortgaged  beyond  its  value. 
The  practice  is  to  be  sold  for  three  hundred  thousand  francs ! 
And  I,  who  thought  I  was  doing  a  good  stroke  of  business, 
must  begin  by  paying  an  extra  hundred  thousand  francs  for 
my  practice ;  I  hold  no  receipt ;  and   there  are  defalcations 


190  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

which  will  eat  up  the  value  of  the  practice  and  the  deposit  of 
caution-money.  The  creditors  will  think  that  I  am  in  it  if  I 
say  anything  about  my  hundred  thousand  francs,  and  you 
have  to  be  very  careful  of  your  reputation  when  you  are  be- 
ginning for  yourself.  You  will  hardly  get  thirty  per  cent. 
Such  a  brew  to  drink  of  at  my  age  !  That  a  man  of  fifty- 
nine  should  take  up  with  a  woman.  The  old  rogue!  Three 
weeks  ago  he  told  me  not  to  marry  Cesarine,  and  said  that 
before  long  you  would  not  have  bread  to  eat,  the  monster  !  " 

Alexandre  might  have  talked  on  for  a  long  while  ;  Birotteau 
stood  like  a  man  turned  to  stone.  Each  sentence  fell  like  a 
stunning  blow.  He  heard  nothing  in  the  sounds  but  his 
death-knell ;  just  as  when  Alexandre  first  began  to  speak,  he 
had  seemed  to  see  his  own  house  in  flames.  He  looked  so 
white  and  stood  so  motionless  that  Alexandre  Crottat,  who 
had  taken  the  worthy  perfumer  for  a  clear-headed,  capable 
man  of  business,  was  frightened  at  last.  Roguin's  successor 
did  not  know  that  this  stroke  had  swept  away  Cesar's  whole 
fortune.  A  swift  thought  of  suicide  flashed  through  the  brain 
of  the  merchant,  so  profoundly  religious  by  nature.  In  such 
a  case  suicide  is  a  way  of  escape  from  a  thousand  deaths,  and 
it  seems  logical  to  accept  but  one.  Alexandre  Crottat  lent 
his  arm  and  tried  to  walk  with  him,  but  it  was  impossible — 
Cesar  tottered  as  if  he  had  been  drunk. 

"Why,  what  is  the  matter  with  you?"  asked  Crottat. 
"  My  good  Monsieur  Cesar,  pluck  up  heart  a  little  !  It  takes 
more  than  this  to  kill  a  man  !  Beside  you  will  recover  forty 
thousand  francs ;  the  man  who  lent  you  the  money  had  not 
the  money  to  lend,  and  did  not  pay  it  over  to  you ;  you 
might  plead  that  the  contract  was  void." 

"My  ball.  My  cross.  Two  hundred  thousand  francs' 
worth  of  my  paper  on  the  market,  and  not  anything  in  the 

safe  to The  Ragons,  Pillerault And  my  wife,  who 

saw  it  all!  " 

A  shower  of  confused  words,  which  called  up  ideas  that 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  191 

overwhelmed  him  and  caused  unspeakable  pangs,  fell  like  hail 
laying  waste  the  flower-beds  of  the  Queen  of  Roses. 

"  If  only  my  head  were  cut  of,"  Birotteau  cried  at  last; 
"it  is  so  heavy  that  it  weighs  me  down,  and  it  is  good  for 
nothing  in  this " 

"  Poor  old  Birotteau  !  "  said  Alexandre ;  "  then  are  you  in 
difficulties?" 

"Difficulties!  " 

"  Very  well ;  keep  up  your  heart  and  struggle  with  them." 

"Struggle  !  "  echoed  the  perfumer. 

"  Du  Tillet  used  to  be  your  assistant;  he  has  a  level  head, 
he  will  help  you." 

"Du  Tillet?" 

"  Come  along  !  " 

"Good  heavens!  I  don't  like  to  go  home  like  this," 
cried  Birotteau.  "You  that  are  my  friend,  if  friends  there 
are,  you  who  have  dined  with  me,  you  in  whom  I  have  taken 
an  interest,  call  a  cab  for  me,  for  my  wife's  sake  ;  and  come 
with  me,  Xandrot " 

With  no  little  difficulty  Crottat  put  the  inert  mechanism, 
called  Cesar,  into  a  cab. 

"Xandrot,"  he  said,  in  a  voice  broken  with  tears,  for  the 
tears  had  begun  to  fall  and  the  iron  band  about  his  head 
seemed  to  be  loosened  a  little,  "let  us  call  at  the  store. 
Speak  to  Celestin  for  me.  My  friend,  tell  him  that  it  is  a 
matter  of  life  and  death  for  me  and  for  my  wife.  And  let 
no  one  prattle  about  Roguin's  disappearance  on  any  pretext 
whatever.  Ask  Cesarine  to  come  down,  and  beg  her  to  allow 
no  one  to  say  anything  about  it  to  her  mother.  You  must 
beware  of  your  best  friends,  Pillerault,  the  Ragons,  every- 
body  " 

The  change  in  Birotteau's  voice  made  a  deep  impression  on 
Crottat,  who  understood  the  importance  of  the  request.  On 
their  way  to  the  magistrate  they  stopped  at  the  house  in  the 
Rue  Saint-Honore.     Celestin  and  Cesarine  were  horrified  to 


192  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

see  Birotteau  lying  back  in  white  and  speechless  hebetude, 
as  it  were,  in  the  cab- 

"Keep  the  affair  a  secret  for  me,"  said  the  perfumer. 

"  Ah  !  "  said  Xandrot  to  himself,  "  he  is  coming  round  ;  I 
thought  it  was  all  over  with  him." 

The  conference  between  Alexandre  and  the  magistrate 
lasted  long.  The  president  of  the  Chamber  of  Notaries  was 
sent  for ;  Cesar  was  taken  hither  and  thither  like  a  parcel ; 
he  did  not  stir,  he  did  not  utter  a  word.  Toward  seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening  Alexandre  Crottat  took  the  perfumer 
home  again,  and  the  thought  of  appearing  before  his  wife  had 
a  bracing  effect  upon  Cesar.  The  young  notary  had  the 
charity  to  precede  him,  to  tell  Mme.  Birotteau  that  her  hus- 
band had  had  a  sort  of  fit. 

"His  ideas  are  confused,"  he  said,  making  a  gesture  to  de- 
scribe a  bewildered  state  of  the  brain  ;  "  perhaps  he  should 
be  bled  or  leeches  ought  to  be  put  on  him." 

"I  knew  how  it  would  be,"  said  Constance — nothing  was 
further  from  her  thoughts  than  the  actual  disaster — "he  did 
not  take  his  medicine  as  usual  at  the  beginning  of  winter, 
and  for  these  two  months  he  has  been  working  like  a  galley 
slave,  as  if  he  had  to  earn  his  daily  bread." 

So  Cesar's  wife  and  daughter  begged  him  to  go  to  bed,  and 
Dr.  Haudry,  Birotteau's  doctor,  was  sent  for.  Old  Haudry 
was  a  doctor  of  the  school  of  Moliere  ;  he  had  a  large  prac- 
tice, and  adhered  to  old-fashioned  methods  and  out-of-date 
formulas ;  consulting-physician  though  he  was,  he  drugged  his 
patients  like  any  quack  doctor.  He  came,  made  his  diag- 
nosis, and  ordered  the  immediate  application  of  a  sinapism  to 
the  soles  of  Cesar's  feet ;  he  detected  symptoms  of  cerebral 
congestion. 

"  What  can  have  brought  it  on  ?  "  asked  Constance. 

"The  damp  weather,"  said  the  doctor.  Cesarine  had 
given  him  a  hint. 

A  doctor  is  often  obliged  professionally  to  talk  nonsense 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  19S 

with  a  learned  air,  to  save  the  honor  or  the  life  of  persons  in 
health  who  stand  about  the  patient's  bed.  The  old  physician 
had  seen  so  much  that  half  a  word  sufficed  for  him.  Ce- 
sarine  went  out  with  the  doctor  on  to  the  stairs  to  ask  about 
the  treatment. 

"  Rest  and  quiet ;  then  when  there  is  less  pressure  on  the 
head,  we  will  venture  on  tonics." 

For  two  days  Mme.  Cesar  sat  by  her  husband's  bedside. 
Often  she  thought  that  he  was  delirious.  As  he  lay  in  his 
wife's  pretty  blue-chamber  he  said  many  things,  which  were 
enigmas  for  Constance,  at  the  sight  of  the  hangings,  the 
furniture,  and  the  costly  magnificence  of  the  room. 

"  He  is  light-headed,"  she  said  to  Cesarine,  when  Cesar 
sat  upright  in  bed  and  began  solemnly  to  repeat  scraps  of  the 
Code.  "If  the  personal  or  household  expenses  are  considered 
excessive Take  away  those  curtains  !  "  he  cried. 

After  three  dreadful  days  of  anxiety  for  Cesar's  reason,  the 
Tourangeau's  strong  peasant  constitution  triumphed,  the 
pressure  on  the  brain  ceased.  M.  Haudry  ordered  cordials 
and  a  strengthening  diet,  and,  after  a  cup  of  coffee  seasonably 
administered,  Cesar  was  on  his  feet  again.  Constance,  worn 
out,  took  her  husband's  place. 

"Poor  thing!"  said  Cesar,  when  he  saw  her  sleeping. 

"Come,  papa,  take  courage!  You  have  so  much  talent, 
that  you  will  triumph  over  this.  Never  mind.  Monsieur 
Anselme  will  help  you,"  and  Cesarine  murmured  the  sweet, 
vague  words,  made  still  sweeter  by  tenderness,  which  put 
courage  into  the  most  sorely  defeated,  as  a  mother's  croon- 
ing songs  soothe  the  pain  of  a  teething  infant. 

"Yes,  child,  I  will  struggle.  But  not  a  word  of  this  to 
any  one  whatever;  not  to  Popinot,  who  loves  us,  nor  to 
your  uncle.  In  the  first  place,  I  will  write  to  my  brother ; 
he  is  a  canon,  I  believe,  a  priest  attached  to  a  cathedral. 
He  spends  nothing,  so  he  must  have  saved  something. 
Five  thousand  francs  put  by  every  year  for  twenty  years — 
13 


194  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

he  ought  to  have  a  hundred  thousand  francs.  Priests  have 
credit  in  country  places." 

Cesarine,  in  her  hurry  to  set  a  little  table  and  the  neces- 
saries for  writing  a  letter  before  her  father,  brought  the 
remainder  of  the  rose- colored  cards  for  the  ball. 

"Burn  them  all!"  cried  the  merchant.  "The  devil 
alone  could  have  put  the  notion  of  that  ball  into  my  head. 
If  I  fail,  it  will  look  as  if  I  were  a  rogue.  Come,  let  us 
go  straight  to  the  point." 


Cesar's  Letter  to  Francois  Birotteau. 

"My  dear  Brother: — My  business  is  passing  through  a 
crisis  so  difficult  that  I  implore  you  to  send  me  all  the 
money  at  your  disposal,  even  if  you  are  obliged  to  borrow. 
Yours  truly,  Cesar. 

"Your  niece,  Cesarine,  who  is  with  me  as  I  write  this 
letter,  while  my  poor  wife  is  asleep,  desires  to  be  remembered 
to  you,  and  sends  her  love." 

This  postscript  was  added  at  Cesarine's  instance.  She  gave 
the  letter  to  Raguet. 

"Father,"  said  she  when  she  came  up  again,  "here  is 
Monsieur  Lebas,  who  wants  to  speak  to  you." 

"  M.  Lebas!  "  cried  Cesar,  starting  as  though  misfortune 
had  made  a  criminal  of  him,  "  a  judge  !  " 

"  Dear  Monsieur  Birotteau,"  said  the  stout  merchant-draper 
as  he  came  in,  "  I  take  too  deep  an  interest  in  you — knowing 
each  other  so  long  as  we  have,  and  being  elected  judges  to- 
gether, as  we  were,  for  the  first  time — not  to  let  you  know 
that  one  Bidault,  otherwise  Gigonnet,  has  bills  of  yours  made 
payable  to  his  order,  without  guarantee,  by  the  firm  of  Cla- 
paron.  Those  two  words  are  not  merely  an  insult;  they  give 
a  fatal  shake  to  your  credit." 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  195 

"  Monsieur  Claparon  would  like  to  speak  with  you,"  said 
Celestin,  putting  in  his  head  ;   "  am  I  to  show  him  up  ?  " 

"We  shall  soon  hear  the  why  and  wherefore  of  this  af- 
front," remarked  Lebas. 

"This  is  Monsieur  Lebas,  sir,"  said  Cesar,  as  Claparon 
came  in  ;  "  he  is  a  judge  of  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce,  and 
my  friend " 

"Oh!  the  gentleman  is  Monsieur  Lebas,  is  he?"  said 
Claparon,  interrupting  Cesar;  "delighted  to  make  his  ac- 
quaintance ;  Monsieur  Lebas  of  the  Tribunal,  there  are  so 
many  Lebas,*  to  say  nothing  of  the  hauts  (high)  and  the  bas 
(low) " 

"  He  has  seen  the  bills  which  I  gave  to  you,  and  which 
(so  you  told  me)  should  not  be  negotiated,"  Birotteau 
went  on,  interrupting  the  rattle  in  his  turn  ;  "  he  has  seen 
them,  too,  with  the  words  '  without  guarantee  '  written  upon 
them." 

"  Well,"  said  Claparon,  "and  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  will 
not  be  negotiated ;  they  are  in  the  hands  of  a  man  with 
whom  I  do  a  great  deal  of  business — old  Bidault.  That  is 
why  I  put  '  without  guarantee '  on  them.  If  the  bills  had 
been  meant  to  be  put  in  circulation,  you  would  have  made 
them  to  his  order  in  the  first  place.  Monsieur  Lebas,  as  a  judge, 
will  understand  my  position.  What  do  the  bills  represent? 
The  price  of  some  landed  property.  To  be  paid  by  whom  ? 
By  Birotteau.  Why  would  you  have  me  guarantee  Birotteau 
by  my  signature  ?  We  must,  each  of  us,  pay  our  share  of  the 
aforesaid  price.  Now  isn't  it  enough  to  be  jointly  and  sev- 
erally responsible  to  the  vendors?  I  have  made  an  inflexible 
rule  in  business:  I  no  more  give  my  signature  for  nothing 
than  I  give  a  receipt  for  money  that  is  still  to  be  paid.  I  as- 
sume the  worst.  Who  signs,  pays.  I  don't  want  to  be  laid 
open  to  pay  three  times  over." 

"Three  times,"  said  Cesar. 

*  Le  bas  :  the  low. 


196  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Claparon.  "I  have  already  guaranteed 
Birotteau  to  the  vendors ;  why  should  I  guarantee  him  again 
to  the  bill-discounter?  Our  case  is  a  hard  one  ;  Roguin  goes 
off  with  a  hundred  thousand  francs  of  mine ;  so,  even  now, 
my  half  of  the  land  is  costing  me  five  hundred  thousand  in- 
stead of  four.  Roguin  has  taken  two  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  francs  belonging  to  Birotteau.  What  would  you  do 
in  my  place,  Monsieur  Lebas  ?  Put  yourself  in  my  shoes.  I 
have  not  the  honor  of  being  known  to  you,  any  more  than  I 
know  Monsieur  Birotteau.  Do  you  take  me  ?  We  go  halves 
in  a  business  speculation.  You  pay  down  all  your  share  of 
the  money  in  cash  ;  and,  as  for  me,  I  give  bills  for-  my  share. 
I  offer  you  the  bills,  and  out  of  excessive  benevolence  you  take 
them  and  give  money  for  them.  You  learn  that  Claparon, 
the  rich  banker,  looked  up  to  by  every  one — I  accept  all  the 
virtues  in  the  world — that  the  virtuous  Claparon  is  in  diffi- 
culties for  a  matter  of  six  millions ;  would  you  select  that 
moment  to  give  your  name  as  a  guarantee  for  mine?  You 
would  be  mad  !  Well  now,  Monsieur  Lebas,  Birotteau  is  in 
the  position  in  which  I  imagined  Claparon  to  be.  Don't  you 
see  that  in  that  case,  being  jointly  and  severally  responsible, 
I  may  be  made  to  pay  the  purchasers ;  that  I  can  be  called 
upon  to  pay  a  second  time  for  Birotteau' s  share  to  the  extent 
of  his  bills;  that  is,  if  I  back  them,  without  having " 

"Pay  whom?"  interrupted  the  perfumer. 

"Without  having  his  half  of  the  land,"  pursued  Claparon, 
heedless  of  the  interruption,  "  for  I  should  have  no  hold  on 
him  ;  so  I  should  have  to  buy  it  over  again.  So — I  might  pay 
three  times  over." 

"  Repay  whom?"  insisted  Birotteau, 

"  Why,  the  holder  of  the  bills ;  if  I  endorsed  them,  and  you 
came  to  grief." 

"  I  shall  not  fail,  sir,"  said  Birotteau. 

"All  right,"  said  Claparon.  "  You  have  been  a  judge,  you 
are  a  clever  man  of  business,  you  know  that  we  ought  to  pro- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  197 

vide  for  all  contingencies,  so  do  not  be  astonished  if  I  act  in 
a  business-like  way." 

"Monsieur  Claparon  is  right,"  said  Joseph  Lebas. 

"  I  am  right,"  continued  Claparon,  "  right  from  a  business 
point  of  view.  But  this  is  a  question  of  landed  property. 
Now,  what  ought  I  myself  to  receive?  Money,  for  the  ven- 
dors must  be  paid  in  coin.  Let  us  set  aside  the  two  hundred 
and  forty  thousand  francs,  which  Monsieur  Birotteau  will  find, 
I  am  sure,"  said  Claparon,  looking  at  Lebas.  "I  came  to 
ask  you  for  the  trifling  sum  of  twenty-five  thousand  francs," 
he  added,  looking  at  Birotteau. 

"  Twenty-five  thousand  francs  !  "  cried  Cesar,  and  it  seemed 
to  him  that  the  blood  turned  to  ice  in  his  veins.  "But,  sir, 
what  for?" 

"  Eh  !  my  dear  sir,  we  are  bound  to  sign,  seal,  and  deliver 
the  deeds  in  the  presence  of  a  notary.  Now,  as  to  paying  for 
the  land,  we  may  arrange  that  among  ourselves,  but  when  the 
Treasury  comes  in — your  humble  servant  !  The  Treasury  does 
not  amuse  itself  with  idle  words ;  it  allows  you  credit  from 
your  hand  to  your  pocket,  and  we  shall  have  to  come  down 
with  the  money — forty-four  thousand  francs  this  week  in  law 
expenses.  I  was  far  from  expecting  reproaches  when  I  came 
here  ;  for,  thinking  that  you  might  find  it  inconvenient  to  pay 
twenty-five  thousand  francs,  I  was  going  to  tell  you  that  by 
the  merest  chance  I  had  saved  for  you " 

"What?"  asked  Birotteau,  giving  in  that  word  that  cry 
of  distress  which  no  man  can  mistake. 

"A  trifle!  Twenty-five  thousand  francs  in  bills  given  to 
you  by  one  and  another,  which  Roguin  gave  me  to  discount. 
I  have  credited  you  with  the  amount  as  against  the  registration 
and  other  expenses  ;  I  will  send  you  the  account ;  there  is  a 
little  matter  to  deduct  for  discounting  them,  and  six  or  seven 
thousand  francs  will  still  be  owing  to  me." 

"This  all  seems  to  me  to  be  perfectly  fair,"  said  Lebas. 
"  In  the  place  of  this  gentleman,  who  appears  to  me  to  un- 


198  CESAR    BIROTTEAU. 

derstand  business  very  well,  I  should  act  the  same  toward  a 
stranger." 

"This  will  not  be  the  death  of  Monsieur  Birotteau," 'said 
Claparon  ;  "it  takes  more  than  one  blow  to  kill  an  old  wolf; 
I  have  seen  wolves  with  bullets  in  their  heads  running  about 
like — Lord,  yes,  like  wolves." 

"  Who  could  have  foreseen  such  rascality  on  Roguin's 
part  ?  "  asked  Lebas,  as  much  alarmed  by  Cesar's  dumbness 
as  by  so  vast  a  speculation  outside  the  perfumery  trade. 

"A  little  more,  and  I  should  have  given  this  gentleman  a 
receipt  for  four  hundred  thousand  francs,"  said  Claparon, 
"  and  I  was  in  a  stew.  I  had  paid  over  a  hundred  thousand 
francs  to  Roguin  the  night  before.  Our  mutual  confidence 
saved  me.  It  would  have  seemed  to  us  all  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence whether  the  money  should  be  lying  at  his  office  or  in  my 
possession  till  the  day  when  the  contracts  were  completed." 

"  It  would  have  been  much  better  if  each  had  deposited  his 
money  with  the  Bank  of  France  till  the  time  came  for  paying 
it  over,"  said  Lebas. 

"  Roguin  was  as  good  as  the  bank,  I  thought,"  said  Cesar. 
"  But  he,  too,  is  in  this  business,"  he  added,  looking  at  Cla- 
paron. 

"  Yes,  for  a  fourth,  and  in  name  only,"  answered  Claparon. 
"After  the  imbecility  of  allowing  him  to  go  off  with  my 
money,  there  is  but  one  thing  more  out-and-out  idiotic — and 
that  would  be  to  make  him  a  present  of  some  more.     If  he 
sends  me  back  my  hundred  thousand  francs,  and  two  hundred 
thousand  more  on  his  own  account,  then  we  shall  see  !     But 
he  will  take  good  care  not  to  put  the  money  into  an  affair 
that  must  simmer  for  four  years  before  you  have  a  spoonful  of 
soup.     If  he  has  only  gone  off  with  three  hundred  thousand 
francs,  as  they  say,  he  will  want  quite  fifty  thousand  livres  a 
year  to  live  decently  abroad." 
"The  bandit  !  " 
"  Eh  !   goodness  !     An  infatuation  for  a  woman  brought 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  199 

Roguin  to  that  pass,"  said  Claparon.  "What  man  at  his 
age  can  answer  for  it  that  he  will  not  be  mastered  and  carried 
away  by  a  last  fancy  ?  Not  one  of  us,  sober  as  we  are,  can 
tell  where  it  will  end.  A  last  love  is  the  most  violent.  Look 
at  Cardot,  and  Camusot,  and  Matifat — every  one  of  them  has 
a  mistress  !  And  if  all  of  us  are  gulled,  is  it  not  our  own 
fault  ?  How  was  it  that  we  did  not  suspect  a  notary  who 
speculated  on  his  own  account?  Any  notary,  any  bill-broker, 
or  stock-broker  who  does  business  on  his  own  account,  is  not 
to  be  trusted.  Failure  for  them  is  fraudulent  bankruptcy ; 
they  are  sent  up  to  the  court  of  assize  for  trial  ;  so,  of  course, 
they  prefer  a  foreign  court.  I  shall  not  make  that  blunder 
again.  Well,  well,  we  are  all  too  weak  to  pass  judgment  by 
default  on  a  man  with  whom  we  have  dined,  who  has  given 
grand  balls,  a  man  in  society,  in  fact !  Nobody  complains  ; 
it  is  wrong." 

"Very  wrong,"  said  Birotteau.  "The  provisions  of  the 
law  with  regard  to  liquidations  and  insolvency  ought  to  be 
revised  throughout." 

"If  you  should  happen  to  need  me,"  said  Lebas,  turning 
himself  to  and  addressing  Birotteau,  "  I  am  quite  at  your 
service." 

"Monsieur  Birotteau  has  need  of  no  one,"  said  the  inde- 
fatigable prattler  (du  Tillet  had  opened  the  sluices  after  pour- 
ing in  the  water,  and  Claparon  was  repeating  a  lesson  which 
du  Tillet  had  very  skillfully  taught  him).  "His  position  is 
clear.  Roguin's  estate  will  pay  a  dividend  of  fifty  per  cent., 
from  what  young  Crottat  tells  me.  Beside  the  dividend, 
Monsieur  Cesar  will  come  by  the  forty  thousand  francs  which 
the  lender  on  the  mortgage  did  not  pay  over ;  he  can  raise 
more  money  on  his  property;  and  we  have  four  months  in 
which  to  pay  two  hundred  thousand  francs  to  the  vendors. 
Between  now  and  then  Monsieur  Birotteau  will  meet  his  bills 
(for  he  ought  not  to  reckon  on  meeting  them  with  the  money 
which  Roguin  made  off  with).     But  if  Monsieur  Birotteau 


200  CfiSAR  BIROTTEAU. 

should  find  himself  a  little  pinched well,  with  one  or  two 

accommodation  bills,  he  will  pull  through." 

The  perfumer  took  heart  as  he  listened.  Claparon  analyzed 
the  business,  summed  it  up,  and  traced  out  a  plan  of  action, 
as  it  were,  for  him.  Gradually  his  expression  grew  decided 
and  resolute,  and  he  conceived  a  great  respect  for  the  ex-com- 
mercial traveler's  business  capacity.  Du  Tillet  had  thought 
it  expedient  to  make  Claparon  believe  that  he  was  one  of 
Roguin's  victims.  He  had  given  Claparon  a  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  to  give  to  Roguin,  who  returned  them  to  du 
Tillet.  Claparon,  being  uneasy,  played  his  part  to  the  life ; 
he  told  anybody  who  cared  to  listen  to  him  that  Roguin  had 
mulcted  him  of  a  hundred  thousand  francs.  Du  Tillet 
doubted  Claparon's  strength  of  mind  ;  he  fancied  that  prin- 
ciples of  honesty  and  conscientious  scruples  still  lingered  in 
his  puppet,  and  would  not  confide  the  whole  of  his  plans  to 
him  ;  he  knew,  moreover,  that  his  instrument  was  incapable 
of  guessing  at  them. 

A  day  came  when  his  commercial  go-between  reproached 
him.  "If  our  first  friend  is  not  our  first  dupe,  we  should 
never  find  the  second,"  said  du  Tillet  to  the  dissipated  Clap- 
aron, and  he  broke  in  pieces  the  tool  which  was  no  longer 
useful. 

M.  Lebas  and  Claparon  went  out  together,  and  Birotteau 
was  left  alone. 

"  I  can  pull  through,"  he  said  to  himself.  "  My  liabilities, 
in  the  shape  of  bills  to  be  met,  amount  to  two  hundred  and 
thirty-five  thousand  francs.  That  is-to  say — seventy-five  thou- 
sand francs  for  the  house  and  a  hundred  and  seventy-five 
thousand  francs  for  the  building  land.  Now,  to  cover  this,  I 
have  Roguin's  dividend,  which  will  amount  may  be  to  a 
hundred  thousand  francs  ;  and  I  can  cancel  the  loan  on  my 
land,  that  is  a  hundred  and  forty  thousand  francs  in  all. 
The  thing  to  be  done  is  to  make  a  hundred  thousand  francs 
by  the  Cephalic  Oil ;   and  a  few  accommodation  bills  or  a 


CESAR  BlROTTEAtt  201 

loan  from  a  banker  will  tide  me  over  until  I  can  make  good 
the  loss  and  the  building  land  reaches  its  enhanced  value." 

When  a  man  in  misfortune  can  once  weave  a  romance  of 
hope  out  of  the  more  or  less  solid  reasonings  with  which  he 
fills  the  pillow  on  which  he  lays  his  head,  he  is  often  saved. 
Many  a  one  has  taken  the  confidence  given  by  an  illusion  for 
energy.  Perhaps  the  half  of  courage  is  really  hope,  and  the 
Catholic  religion  reckons  hope  among  the  virtues.  Has  not 
hope  buoyed  up  many  a  weakling,  giving  him  time  to  await 
the  chances  which  life  brings? 

Birotteau  made  up  his  mind  to  apply,  in  the  first  place,  to 
his  wife's  uncle,  and  to  disclose  his  position  to  his  relative 
before  going  elsewhere.  He  went  down  the  Rue  Saint- 
Honore  and  reached  the  Rue  Bourdonnais,  not  without  ex- 
periencing inward  pangs,  which  caused  such  violent  internal 
disturbance  that  he  thought  his  health  was  deranged.  There 
was  a  fire  in  his  vitals.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  those  whose  sen- 
tience is  keenest  in  the  diaphragm  suffer  in  that  region  ;  just 
as  those  whose  faculty  of  perception  resides  in  the  brain  suffer 
in  the  head.  In  grave  crises  the  system  is  attacked  at  the 
point  where  the  temperament  locates  the  seat  of  life  in  the 
individual ;  weaklings  have  the  colic,  a  Napoleon  grows 
drowsy. 

Before  a  man  of  honor  can  storm  a  confidence  and  over- 
leap the  barriers  of  pride,  he  must  have  felt  the  prick  of  the 
spur  of  Necessity,  that  hard  rider,  more  than  once.  So  for 
two  days  Birotteau  had  borne  that  spurring  before  he  went  to 
see  Pillerault,  and  then  family  reasons  decided  him — however 
things  might  go,  he  must  explain  the  position  to  the  stern 
hardware  man.  Yet,  for  all  that,  when  he  reached  the  door  he 
felt  in  his  inmost  soul  as  a  child  feels  on  a  visit  to  the  dentist, 
that  his  courage  was  sinking  away  ;  and  Birotteau  was  not  about 
to  face  a  momentary  pang,  he  quailed  before  a  whole  lifetime 
to  come.  Slowly  he  went  up  the  stairs,  and  found  the  old 
man  reading  the  "  Constitutionnel  "  by  the  fireside;    on  a 


202  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

little  round  table  his  frugal  breakfast  was  set — a  roll,  butter, 
Brie  cheese,  and  a  cup  of  coffee. 

"  There  is  real  wisdom,"  said  Birotteau  to  himself,  and  he 
envied  his  uncle's  life. 

"Well,"  said  Pillerault,  laying  down  his  spectacles,  "I 
heard  about  Roguin's  affair  yesterday  at  the  Cafe  David ;  so 
his  mistress,  the  Beautiful  Dutchwoman,  is  murdered  !  I  hope 
that,  warned  by  us  who  want  to  be  actual  proprietors,  you 
have  been  to  Claparon  and  taken  a  receipt?" 

"  Alas  !  uncle,  that  is  just  it;  you  have  laid  your  finger  on 
the  spot.     No." 

"Oh,  bother!  you  are  ruined,"  said  Pillerault,  dropping 
his  paper  ;  and  Birotteau  picked  it  up,  although  it  was  the 
"  Constitutionnel." 

This  thought  was  such  a  shock  that  Pillerault' s  stern  feat- 
ures, always  like  a  profile  on  a  coin,  grew  hard  as  if  they  had 
been  struck  in  bronze.  He  stared  with  steady  eyes  that  saw 
nothing,  through  the  windows,  at  the  opposite  wall,  and  lis- 
tened while  Birotteau  poured  out  a  long  discourse.  Evidently 
while  he  heard  he  deliberated ;  he  was  pondering  the  case 
with  the  inflexibility  of  a  Minos  who  crossed  the  Styx  of  com- 
merce, when  he  left  the  Quai  des  Morfondos  for  his  little 
fourth-floor  dwelling. 

"Well,  uncle?"  asked  Birotteau  at  last,  expecting  some 
answer  to  a  final  entreaty  to  sell  rentes  worth  sixty  thousand 
francs  a  year. 

"Well,  my  poor  nephew,  I  cannot  do  it.  Things  have 
gone  too  far.  We,  the  Ragons  and  I,  shall  both  lose  fifty 
thousand  francs.  It  was  by  my  advice  that  the  good  folk  sold 
their  shares  in  the  Worstchin  Mines.  I  feel  myself  bound,  if 
they  lose  the  money,  not  to  replace  their  capital,  but  to  give 
them  a  helping  hand,  and  to  help  my  niece  and  Cesarine. 
You  might,  perhaps,  all  of  you  want  bread,  and  you  must  come 
to  me " 

"Bread,  uncle?" 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  203 

"Well,  yes,  bread.  Just  look  the  facts  in  the  face  :  you 
will  not  pull  through  /  Out  of  five  thousand  six  hundred 
francs  a  year,  I  will  set  aside  four  thousand  to  divide  between 
you  and  the  Ragons.  When  your  disaster  comes,  I  know 
Constance,  she  will  slave  and  deny  herself  everything — and 
so  will  you,  Cesar  !  " 

"  There  is  yet  hope,  uncle." 

"  I  do  not  see  it  as  you  do." 

"  I  will  prove  the  contrary." 

"  Nothing  would  please  me  better." 

Birotteau  went  without  an  answer  for  Pillerault.  He  had 
come  to  find  comfort  and  encouragement,  he  had  received  a 
second  blow  ;  a  blow  less  heavy  than  the  first  one,  it  is  true  ; 
but  whereas  the  first  had  been  dealt  at  his  head,  this  thrust  had 
gone  to  his  heart,  and  the  poor  man's  life  lay  in  his  affections. 
He  had  gone  down  part  of  the  way,  and  then  he  turned  and 
went  up  again. 

"  Sir,"  he  said,  in  a  constrained  voice,  "  Constance  knows 
nothing  of  this,  keep  the  secret  for  me  at  least ;  and  beg  the 
Ragons  not  to  disturb  the  peace  that  I  need  if  I  am  to  fight 
against  misfortune." 

Pillerault  made  a  sign  of  assent. 

"Take  courage,  Cesar,"  he  said.  "I  see  that  you  are 
angry  with  me,  but  some  day  you  will  acknowledge  that  I  am 
right,  when  you  think  of  your  wife  and  daughter." 

Discouraged  by  this  opinion  given  by  his  uncle,  whose 
clear-headedness  he  acknowledged,  Cesar  suddenly  dropped 
from  the  heights  of  hope  into  the  miry  slough  of  uncertainty. 
When  a  man's  affairs  take  an  ugly  turn  like  this  he  is  apt  to 
become  the  plaything  of  circumstances,  unless  he  is  of  Piller- 
ault's  temper;  he  follows  other  people's  ideas,  or  his  own,  much 
as  a  wayfarer  pursues  a  will-o'-the-wisp.  He  allows  himself  to 
be  swept  away  by  the  whirlwind  when  he  should  either  lie 
prostrate  with  his  eyes  shut,  and  let  it  pass  over  him,  or  rise 
and  watch  the  direction  that  it  takes,  to  escape  the  blast.     In 


204  CESAR  B1ROTTEAU. 

the  midst  of  his  anguish,  Birotteau  bethought  himself  of  the 
necessary  steps  to  be  taken  with  regard  to  his  loan.  He  went 
to  see  Derville,  a  consulting  barrister  in  the  Rue  Vivienne,  so 
as  to  set  about  it  the  sooner,  if  Derville  should  see  any 
chance  of  canceling  the  contract.  Him  he  found  sitting, 
wrapped  in  his  white  flannel  dressing-gown,  by  the  fireside, 
staid  and  self-possessed,  as  is  the  wont  of  men  of  law,  accus- 
tomed as  they  are  to  the  most  harrowing  disclosures.  Bi- 
rotteau felt,  as  a  new  thing  in  his  experience,  this  necessary 
coolness ;  it  was  like  ice  to  an  excited  man  like  Birotteau 
telling  the  story  of  his  misfortunes,  smarting  from  the  wounds 
that  he  had  received,  stricken  with  the  fever  induced  by  the 
risks  his  fortunes  were  running,  and  cruelly  beset,  since  honor 
and  life  and  wife  and  child  were  all  imperiled. 

"If  it  is  proved,"  said  Derville,  when  he  had  heard  him 
out,  "  that  the  lender  no  longer  had  in  Roguin's  keeping  the 
sum  of  money  which  Roguin  induced  you  to  borrow  of  him, 
as  there  has  been  no  transfer  of  the  actual  money,  the  con- 
tract might  be  annulled,  and  the  lender  will  have  his  remedy 
(as  you  also  will  have  for  your  hundred  thousand  francs)  in 
Roguin's  caution-money.  In  that  case,  I  will  answer  for  your 
lawsuit,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  answer  for  any  action  at  law, 
for  no  action  is  a  foregone  conclusion." 

The  opinion  of  so  learned. an  expert  put  a  little  heart  into 
Birotteau.  He  begged  Derville  to  obtain  a  judgment  within 
a  fortnight.  The  advocate  answered  to  the  effect  that  Birot- 
teau might  be  obliged  to  wait  three  months  before  the  contract 
would  be  annulled. 

"Three  months!"  cried  Birotteau,  who  thought  that  he 
had  found  an  expedient  for  raising  money  at  once. 

"  Well,  if  you  yourself  succeed  in  gaining  a  prompt  hearing 
for  your  case,  we  cannot  hurry  your  opponent  to  suit  your 
pace ;  he  will  take  advantage  of  the  delays  of  procedure  ; 
advocates  are  not  always  at  the  Palais ;  who  knows  but  that 
the  other  party  will  let  judgment  go  against  him  by  default  ? 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  205 

And  he  will  appeal.  You  can't  set  your  own  pace,  my  dear 
sir!  "  said  Derville,  smiling. 

"But  at  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce " 

"  Oh  !  "  said  the  advocate,  "  the  Consular  Tribunal  is  one 
thing  and  the  Tribunal  of  First  Instance  is  another.  You 
do  things  in  a  slashing  way  over  yonder.  Now,  at  the  Palais 
de  Justice  there  are  formalities  to  be  gone  through.  These 
formalities  are  the  bulwarks  of  justice.  How  would  you  like 
it  if  a  demand  for  forty  thousand  francs  was  suddenly  fired  off 
at  you  ?  Well,  your  opponent,  who  will  see  that  amount 
compromised,  will  dispute  it.  Delays  are  the  spiked  wall  of 
the  law." 

"You  are  right,"  said  Birotteau,  and  he  took  leave  of 
Derville  with  a  deadly  chill  at  his  heart.  "  They  are  all 
right.  Money  !  Money  !  "  cried  the  perfumer,  out  in  the 
street,  talking  to  himself,  as  is  the  wont  of  busy  men  in  this 
turbulent,  seething  Paris,  which  a  modern  poet  calls  "  a  vat." 

As  he  came  into  his  store,  one  of  the  assistants,  who  had 
been  out  delivering  invoices  to  the  customers,  told  him  that, 
as  the  New  Year  was  at  hand,  every  one  had  torn  off  the 
receipt-form  at  the  foot  and  kept  the  invoices. 

"Then  there  is  no  money  anywhere  !  "  Birotteau  exclaimed 
aloud  in  the  store.  All  the  assistants  looked  up  at  this,  and 
he  bit  his  lips. 

In  this  way  five  days  went  by;  and  during  those  five  days 
Braschon,  Lourdois,  Thorien,  Grindot,  Chaffaroux,  and  all 
the  creditors  whose  bills  remained  unpaid,  passed  through  the 
chameleon's  intermediate  transitions  of  tone,  from  the  serene 
hues  of  confidence  to  the  wrathful  red  of  the  commercial 
Bellona.  In  Paris,  in  such  crises,  suspicion  is  as  quick  to 
reach  the  panic  stage  as  confidence  is  slow  to  show  expansive 
symptoms  ;  and,  when  a  creditor  once  adopts  the  restringent 
system  of  doubts  and  precautions  in  business  relations,  he  is 
apt  to  descend  to  underhand  villainies  that  put  him  below  his 
debtor's  level.     From  cringing  civility  the  creditors  passed 


206  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

successively  through  the  inflammatory  phase,  the  red  of  im- 
patience, the  lurid  coruscations  of  importunity,  to  outbursts 
of  disappointment,  and  from  the  cold-blue  stage  of  making 
up  their  minds  to  the  black  insolence  of  threatening  to  serve 
a  writ. 

Braschon,  the  rich  furniture  dealer  of  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Antoine,  who  had  not  been  included  in  the  invitations  to  the 
ball,  sounded  to  arms  in  his  quality  of  the  creditor  whose  self- 
love  has  been  wounded.  Paid  he  meant  to  be,  and  within 
twenty-four  hours  ;  he  required  security,  not  deposits  of  furni- 
ture, but  a  second  mortgage,  the  mortgage  for  forty  thousand 
francs  on  the  property  in  the  Faubourg  du  Temple.  In  spite 
of  their  furious  recriminations,  these  gentry  still  left  Cesar 
occasional  intervals  of  peace  when  he  might  breathe ;  but  in- 
stead of  bringing  a  resolute  will  to  carry  these  outworks  of  an 
awkward  position,  and  so  putting  an  end  to  them,  Birotteau 
was  taxing  all  his  wits  to  keep  the  state  of  things  from  the 
knowledge  of  his  wife,  and  the  one  person  who  could  give 
him  counsel  knew  nothing  of  his  difficulties.  He  stood  sen- 
tinel on  the  threshold  of  his  store.  He  confided  his  mo- 
mentary inconvenience  to  Celestin,  who  watched  his  employer 
with  curious  and  astonished  eyes ;  already  Cesar  had  fallen 
somewhat  in  his  esteem,  as  men  accustomed  to  prosperity 
are  apt  to  dwindle  when  evil  days  discover  that  all  their 
power  consists  in  the  increased  facility  of  dealing  with  mat- 
ters of  every-day  experience,  acquired  by  an  ordinary  intelli- 
gence. 

But  if  Cesar  lacked  the  mental  energy  required  for  defend- 
ing himself  when  attacked  at  so  many  points  at  once,  he  had 
sufficient  courage  to  face  his  position.  Before  the  15th  of 
January  he  required  the  sum  of  sixty  thousand  francs,  and 
thirty  thousand  of  these  were  due  on  the  31st  of  December. 
Part  of  this  sum  was  owing  for  the  house,  part  for  rent  and 
accounts  to  be  paid  in  ready  money,  part  of  it  in  bills  to 
be   met ;   with  all   his   efforts  he  could  only  collect  twenty 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  207 

thousand  francs,  so  that  there  was  a  deficit  of  ten  thousand  to 
be  made  up  by  the  end  of  the  month.  Nothing  seemed  hope- 
less to  him,  for  he  had  already  ceased  to  look  beyond  the 
present  moment,  and,  like  an  adventurer,  had  begun  to  live 
from  day  to  day.  At  length  he  resolved  to  make  what  for 
him  was  a  bold  stroke.  Before  it  was  known  that  he  was  in 
difficulties,  he  would  apply  to  Francois  Keller,  banker,  orator, 
and  philanthropist,  widely  known  for  his  beneficence,  and  for 
his  desire  to  stand  well  with  the  mercantile  world  of  Paris, 
always  with  a  view  to  representing  their  interests  one  day  as  a 
deputy  in  the  Chamber.  In  politics  the  banker  was  a  Liberal, 
and  Cesar  was  a  Royalist ;  but  the  perfumer  decided  that  the 
capitalist  was  a  man  after  his  own  heart,  and  that  a  difference 
of  opinion  in  politics  was  but  one  reason  the  more  for  opening 
an  account.  If  paper  should  be  necessary,  he  did  not  doubt 
Popinot's  devotion,  and  counted  upon  obtaining  from  him 
some  thirty  bills  of  a  thousand  francs  each ;  with  these  he 
might  hold  out  until  he  gained  his  lawsuit,  the  forty  thousand 
francs  involved  in  it  being  offered  as  security  to  the  most 
urgent  creditors. 

The  effusive  soul,  who  was  wont  to  confide  to  the  pillow  of 
his  dear  Constance  the  least  emotions  of  his  existence,  who 
drew  his  courage  from  her,  and  was  wont  to  seek  of  her  the 
light  thrown  by  contradiction  on  all  topics,  was  cut  off  from 
all  exchange  of  ideas  with  his  first  assistant,  his  uncle,  and 
his  wife,  and  found  that  the  weight  of  his  cares  was  thereby 
doubled.  Yet  this  self-sacrificing  martyr  preferred  suffering 
?lone  to  the  alternative  of  casting  his  wife's  soul  into  the  fiery 
furnace ;  he  would  tell  her  about  the  danger  when  it  was  past. 
Perhaps,  too,  he  shrank  from  telling  her  the  hideous  secret ; 
he  stood  in  some  fear  of  his  wife,  and  this  fear  lent  him  cour- 
age. He  went  every  morning  to  low  mass  at  Saint-Roch  and 
told  his  troubles  to  God. 

"  If  I  do  not  meet  a  soldier  on  my  way  back  from  Saint- 
Roch,  I  will  take  it  as  a  sign  that  my  prayer  is  heard.     It 


208  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

shall  be  God's  answer  to  me,"  he  said  to  himself,  after  he  had 
prayed  for  deliverance. 

And,  for  his  happiness,  he  did  not  meet  a  soldier.  Yet, 
nevertheless,  his  heart  was  overfull,  and  he  needed  another 
human  heart  to  whom  he  could  make  moan.  Cesarine,  to 
whom  he  had  already  told  the  fatal  news,  learned  the  whole 
truth,  and  stolen  glances  were  exchanged  between  them, 
glances  fraught  with  despair  or  repressed  hope,  passionate 
invocations,  appeals,  and  sympathetic  responses,  answering 
gleams  of  intelligence  between  soul  and  soul.  For  his  wife 
Cesar  put  on  high  spirits  and  mirth.  If  Constance  asked  any 
question — "  Pshaw,  everything  was  all  right.  Popinot  "  (to 
whom  Cesar  gave  not  a  thought)  "  was  doing  well !  The  Oil 
was  selling  !  Claparon's  bills  would  be  met;  there  was  noth- 
ing to  fear."  The  hollow  merriment  was  ghastly.  When  his 
wife  lay  sleeping  amid  the  splendors,  Birotteau  would  rise 
and  fall  to  thinking  over  his  misfortunes ;  and  more  than  once 
Cesarine  came  in,  in  her  night-dress,  barefooted,  with  a  shawl 
about  her  white  shoulders. 

"Papa,  you  are  crying;  I  can  hear  you,"  she  would  say, 
and  she  would  cry  herself  as  she  spoke. 

When  Cesar  had  written  to  ask  the  great  Francois  Keller 
to  make  an  appointment  with  him  he  fell  into  such  a  state  of 
torpor  that  Cesarine  persuaded  him  to  walk  out  with  her.  In 
the  streets  of  Paris  he  saw  nothing  but  huge  red  placards,  and 
the  words  Cephalic  Oil  in  staring  letters  everywhere  met  his 
eyes. 

While  the  glory  of  the  Queen  of  Roses  was  thus  waning  in 
disastrous  gloom,  the  firm  of  A.  Popinot  was  dawning  radiant 
with  the  sunrise  splendors  of  success.  Anselme  had  taken 
counsel  of  Gaudissart  and  Finot,  and  had  launched  his  oil 
boldly.  During  the  past  three  days  two  thousand  placards 
had  been  posted  in  the  most  conspicuous  situations  in  Paris. 
Every  one  in  the  streets  was  confronted  with  the  Cephalic  Oil, 
and  willy-nilly  must  read  the  pithy  remarks  from  Finot' s  pen 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  209 

as  to  the  impossibility  of  stimulating  the  growth  of  the  hair, 
and  the  perils  attendant  on  dyeing  it,  together  with  an  extract 
from  a  paper  read  before  the  Academie  des  Sciences  by  Vau- 
quelin.  It  was  as  good  as  a  certificate  of  existence  for  dead 
hair,  thus  held  out  to  those  who  should  use  the  Cephalic  Oil. 
The  store-doors  of  every  perfumer,  hair-dresser,  and  wigmaker 
in  Paris  were  made  glorious  with  gilded  frames,  containing  a 
beautiful  design,  printed  on  vellum  paper,  with  a  reduced 
fac -simile  of  the  picture  of  "  Hero  and  Leander  "  at  the  top, 
and  beneath  it  ran  the  motto  :  The  ancie?it  peoples  of  antiquity 
preserved  their  hair  by  the  use  of  Cephalic  Oil. 

'■'  He  has  thought  of  permanent  frames ;  he  has  found  an 
advertisement  that  will  last  for  ever  !  "  said  Birotteau  to  him- 
self, as  he  stood  staring  in  dull  amazement  at  the  store-front 
of  the  Silver  Bell. 

"Then  you  did  not  see  a  frame  on  your  own  door?" 
asked  his  daughter.  "  Monsieur  Anselme  brought  it  himself, 
and  left  three  hundred  bottles  of  the  oil  with  Ceiestin." 

"No,  I  did  not  see  it,"  he  answered. 

"  And  Ceiestin  has  already  sold  fifty  to  chance-comers  and 
sixty  to  our  own  customers." 

"Oh!"  said  Cesar. 

The  sound  of  myriad  bells  that  misery  sets  ringing  in  the 
ears  of  her  victims  had  made  the  perfumer  dizzy ;  his  head 
seemed  to  spin  round  and  round  in  those  days.  Popinot  had 
waited  a  whole  hour  to  speak  with  him  on  the  day  before, 
and  had  gone  away  after  chatting  with  Constance  and 
Cesarine ;  the  women  told  him  that  Cesar  was  very  busy 
over  his  great  scheme. 

"  Oh  yes,  the  building  land  !  "  Popinot  had  said. 

Luckily,  Popinot  had  not  left  the  Rue  des  Cinq-Diamants 
for  a  month  ;  he  had  worked  day  and  night  at  his  business, 
and  had  seen  neither  Ragon,  nor  Pillerault,  nor  his  uncle. 
The  poor  lad  was  never  in  bed  before  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning;  he  had  only  two  assistants,  and  at  the  rate  at  which 
14 


210  CESAR  BlROTTEAtZ 

things  were  going  he  would  soon  have  work  enough  for 
four.  Opportunity  is  everything  in  business ;  success  is  a 
horse  which,  if  caught  by  the  mane  and  ridden  by  a  bold 
rider,  will  carry  him  on  to  fortune.  Popinot  told  himself 
that  he  should  receive  a  welcome  when,  at  the  end  of  six 
months,  he  could  carry  the  news  to  his  aunt  and  uncle — "  I 
am  saved;  my  fortune  is  made!" — a  welcome,  too,  from 
Birotteau  when,  at  the  end  of  the  first  half-year,  he  should 
bring  him  his  share  of  the  profits — thirty  or  forty  thousand 
francs  !  He  had  not  heard  of  Roguin's  disappearance,  nor 
of  Cesar's  consequent  disasters  and  difficulties  ;  so  that  he 
could  not  let  fall  any  indiscreet  remarks  in  Madame  Birot- 
teau's  presence. 

Popinot  had  promised  Finot  five  hundred  francs  for  each 
of  the  leading  newspapers  (ten  in  all),  and  three  hundred 
francs  for  each  second-rate  paper  (and  of  these,  too,  there 
were  ten),  if  the  Cephalic  Oil  was  mentioned  three  times  a 
month  in  each.  Of  those  eight  thousand  francs,  Finot  be- 
held three  thousand  as  his  own,  his  first  stake  to  lay  on  the 
vast  green  table  of  speculation.  So  he  had  sprung  like  a  lion 
upon  his  friends  and  acquaintances ;  he  haunted  newspaper 
offices  ;  writers  of  newspaper  articles  awoke  from  slumber  to 
find  him  sitting  by  their  pillows;  and  the  evening  found  him 
pacing  the  lobbies  of  all  the  theatres.  "  Remember  my  oil, 
my  dear  fellow ;  it  is  nothing  to  me ;  a  matter  of  good-fel- 
lowship, you  know;  Gaudissart,  a  jolly  dog."  With  this 
formula,  his  harangues  always  began  -and  ended.  He  filled 
up  spaces  at  the  foot  of  the  last  columns  in  the  papers,  and 
left  the  money  to  those  upon  the  staff.  He  was  as  cunning 
as  any  super  who  is  minded  to  transform  himself  into  an 
actor,  and  as  active  as  an  errand  boy  on  sixty  francs  a  month; 
he  wrote  insinuating  letters,  he  worked  on  the  vanity  of  all 
and  sundry,  he  did  dirty  work  for  editors,  to  the  end  that  his 
paragraphs  might  be  inserted  in  their  papers.  His  enthusi- 
astic energy  left  no  means  untried — money,  dinners,    plati- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  211 

tudes.  By  means  of  tickets  for  the  play  he  corrupted  the 
men  who  finish  off  the  columns  toward  midnight  with  short 
paragraphs  of  small  news  items  already  set  up  ;  hanging  about 
the  printing-office  for  that  purpose,  as  if  he  had  proofs  to 
revise. 

So  by  dint  of  making  every  one  his  friend,  Finot  secured 
the  triumph  of  the  Cephalic  Oil  over  the  Pate  de  Regnault 
and  the  Mixture  Bresilienne,  over  all  the  inventions,  in  fact, 
whose  promoters  had  the  wit  to  comprehend  the  influence  of 
journalism  and  the  effect  produced  upon  the  public  mind  by 
the  piston-stroke  of  the  reiterated  paragraph.  In  that  age 
of  innocence,  journalists,  like  draught-oxen,  were  unaware  of 
their  strength ;  their  heads  ran  on  actresses — Mesdemoiselles 
Florine,  Tullia,  Mariette — they  lorded  it  over  all  creation, 
and  made  no  practical  use  of  their  powers.  In  Andoche's 
propositions  there  was  no  actress  to  be  applauded,  no  drama 
to  be  put  upon  the  stage ;  he  did  not  ask  them  to  make  a 
success  of  his  vaudevilles,  nor  to  pay  him  for  his  paragraphs ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  offered  money  in  season  and  opportune 
breakfasts  ;  so  there  was  not  a  newspaper  that  did  not  men- 
tion the  Cephalic  Oil,  and  how  that  it  was  in  accordance  with 
Vauquelin's  investigations;  not  a  journal  that  did  not  scoff 
at  the  superstition  that  the  hair  could  be  induced  to  grow 
and  proclaim  the  danger  of  dyeing  it. 

These  paragraphs  rejoiced  Gaudissart's  heart.  He  laid  in 
a  supply  of  papers  wherewith  to  demolish  prejudice  in  the 
provinces,  and  accomplished  the  manoeuvre  known  among 
speculators  since  his  time  as  "taking  the  public  by  storm." 
In  those  days  newspapers  from  Paris  exercised  a  great  influ- 
ence in  the  departments,  the  hapless  country  districts  being 
still  "without  organs."  The  Paris  newspaper,  therefore,  was 
taken  up  as  a  serious  study,  and  read  through  from  the  head- 
ing to  the  printer's  name  on  the  last  line  of  the  last  page, 
where  the  irony  of  persecuted  opinion  might  be  supposed 
to  lurk. 


212  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

Gaudissart,  thus  supported  by  the  press,  had  a  brilliant  suc- 
cess from  the  very  first  in  every  town  where  his  tongue  had 
play.  Every  provincial  storekeeper  was  anxious  for  a  frame 
and  copies  of  "Hero  and  Leander."  Finot  devised  that 
charming  joke  against  Macassar  Oil,  which  drew  such  laughter 
at  the  Funambules,  when  Pierrot  takes  up  an  old  house-brush, 
visibly  worn  down  to  the  holes,  and  rubs  it  with  Macassar  Oil, 
and,  lo,  the  stump  becomes  a  mop — a  piece  of  irony  which 
brought  down  the  house.  In  later  days  Finot  would  gaily  re- 
late how  that  but  for  those  three  thousand  francs  he  must 
have  died  of  want  and  misery.  For  him  three  thousand  francs 
was  a  fortune.  In  this  campaign  he  discovered  the  power 
of  advertising,  which  he  was  to  wield  so  wisely  and  so  much 
to  his  own  profit.  Three  months  later  this  pioneer  was  the 
editor  of  a  small  paper,  of  which  after  a  time  he  became  the 
proprietor,  and  so  laid  the  foundation  of  his  fortune.  Even 
as  the  illustrious  Gaudissart,  that  Murat  among  commercial 
travelers,  "took  the  public  by  storm,"  and  gained  brilliant 
victories  along  the  frontiers  and  in  the  provinces  for  the  house 
of  Popinot,  so  did  the  cause  gain  ground  in  public  opinion  in 
Paris,  thanks  to  the  desperate  assault  upon  the  newspapers, 
which  gave  it  the  prompt  publicity  likewise  secured  by  the 
Mixture  Bresilienne  and  the  Pate  de  Regnault.  Three  for- 
tunes were  made  by  this  means,  and  then  began  the  descent 
of  the  thousands  of  ambitious  tradesmen  who  have  since  gone 
down  by  battalions  into  the  arena  of  journalism,  and  there 
called  advertising  into  being.  A  mighty  revolution  was 
wrought. 

At  that  moment  the  words  "Popinot  &  Company"  were 
flaunting  on  every  wall  and  store-door;  and  Birotteau,  unable 
to  measure  the  enormous  area  over  which  these  announcements 
were  displayed,  contented  himself  with  saying  to  Cesarine, 
"Little  Popinot  is  following  in  my  footsteps,"  without  com- 
prehending the  difference  of  the  times,  without  appreciation 
of  the  new  methods  and  improved  means  of  communication 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  213 

which  spread  intelligence  much  more  rapidly  than   hereto- 
fore. 

Birotteau  had  not  set  foot  in  his  factory  since  the  ball ;  he 
did  not  know  how  busy  and  energetic  Popinot  had  been. 
Anselme  had  set  all  Birotteau's  operatives  on  the  work,  and 
slept  in  the  place.  He  saw  Cesarine  sitting  on  every  packing- 
case  and  reclining  on  every  package  ;  her  face  looked  at  him 
from  each  new  invoice.  "  She  will  be  my  wife  !  "  he  said  to 
himself,  as,  with  coat  thrown  off  and  shirt-sleeves  rolled  above 
the  elbows,  he  hammered  in  the  nails  with  all  his  might, 
while  his  assistants  were  sent  out  on  business. 

The  next  day,  after  spending  the  whole  night  in  pondering 
what  to  say  and  what  not  to  say  to  the  great  banker,  Cesar 
reached  the  Rue  du  Houssaye  and  entered,  with  a  heart  that 
beat  painfully  fast,  the  mansion  of  the  Liberal  financier,  the 
adherent  of  a  political  party  accused,  and  not  unjustly,  of 
desiring  the  downfall  of  the  Bourbons.  To  Birotteau,  as  to 
most  small  merchants  in  Paris,  the  manners  and  customs  and 
the  personality  of  those  who  move  in  high  financial  circles 
were  quite  unknown  ;  for  the  smaller  traders  usually  deal  with 
lesser  houses,  which  form  a  sort  of  intermediate  term,  a  highly 
satisfactory  arrangement  for  the  great  capitalists,  who  find  in 
them  one  guarantee  the  more. 

Constance  and  Birotteau,  who  had  never  overdrawn  their 
balance,  who  had  never  known  what  it  was  to  have  no  money 
in  the  safe  and  no  bills  in  the  portfolio,  had  not  had  recourse 
to  these  banks  of  the  second  order ;  and,  for  the  best  reasons, 
were  entirely  unknown  in  the  higher  financial  world.  Per- 
haps it  is  a  mistaken  policy  seduously  to  abstain  from  borrow- 
ing even  though  you  may  not  require  the  money ;  opinions 
differ  on  this  head  ;  but  be  that  as  it  may,  Birotteau  at  that 
moment  deeply  regretted  that  he  had  never  put  his  signature 
to  a  piece  of  paper.  Yet,  as  he  was  known  as  a  deputy-mayor 
and  a  shrewd  man  of  business,  he  imagined  that  he  would 
only  have  to  mention  his  name,  and  he  should  see  the  banker 


214  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

at  once  ;  he  did  not  know  that  men  flocked  to  the  Kellers' 
audiences  as  to  the  court  of  a  king.  In  the  antechamber  of 
the  study  occupied  by  the  man  with  so  many  claims  to  great- 
ness, Birotteau  found  himself  among  a  crowd  composed  of 
deputies,  writers,  journalists,  stockbrokers,  great  merchants, 
men  of  business,  engineers,  and,  above  all,  of  familiars,  who 
made  their  way  through  the  groups  of  speakers  and  knocked 
in  a  particular  manner  at  the  door  of  the  study,  where  they 
had  the  privilege  of  entry. 

"  What  am  I  in  the  middle  of  this  machinery?  "  Birotteau 
asked  himself,  quite  bewildered  by  the  stir  and  bustle  in  this 
factory,  where  so  much  brain-power  was  at  work  furnishing 
daily  bread  for  the  camp  of  the  Opposition  ;  this  theatre  where 
rehearsals  of  the  grand  tragi-comedy  played  by  the  Left  were 
wont  to  take  place. 

On  one  hand  he  heard  a  discussion  relative  to  a  loan  that 
was  being  negotiated  to  complete  the  construction  of  the 
principal  lines  of  canal  recommended  by  the  Department  of 
Roads  and  Bridges  ;  a  question  of  millions  !  On  the  otherf 
journalists,  the  bankers'  jackals,  were  talking  of  yesterday'? 
sitting  and  of  their  patron's  extempore  speech.  During  the 
two  hours  while  he  waited,  he  saw  the  banker-politician 
thrice  emerge  from  his  cabinet,  accompanying  some  visitor  of 
importance  for  a  few  paces  through  the  antechamber.  Keller 
went  as  far  as  the  door  with  the  last — General  Foy. 

"  It  is  all  over  with  me  !  "  Birotteau  said  to  himself,  and 
something  clutched  at  his  heart. 

As  the  great  banker  returned  to  his  cabinet,  the  whole  troop 
of  courtiers,  friends,  and  followers  crowded  after  him,  like 
the  canine  race  about  some  attractive  female  of  the  species. 
One  or  two  bolder  curs  slipped  in  spite  of  him  into  the  audi- 
ence chamber.  The  conferences  lasted  for  five  minutes,  ten 
minutes,  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  Some  went  away  visibly  chop- 
fallen  ;  some  with  a  satisfied  look  ;  some  assumed  important 
airs.     Time  went  by,  and  Birotteau  looked  anxiously  at  ths? 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  215 

clock.  No  one  paid  the  slightest  attention  to  the  man  with 
a  secret  care,  sighing  restlessly  in  the  gilded  chair  by  the 
hearth,  at  the  very  door  of  the  closet  that  contained  that 
panacea  for  all  troubles — credit. 

Dolefully  Cesar  thought  how  that  he,  too,  in  his  own  house, 
and  for  a  little  while,  had  been  a  king,  as  this  man  was, 
morning  after  morning ;  and  he  fathomed  the  depths  of  the 
abyss  into  which  he  was  falling.  He  had  bitter  thoughts  ! 
How  many  unshed  tears  were  crowded  in  those  two  hours  ! 
How  many  petitions  he  put  up  that  this  man  might  incline 
a  favorable  ear ;  for,  beneath  the  husk  of  popularity-seeking 
good-nature,  Birotteau  instinctively  felt  that  there  lurked  in 
Keller  an  insolent,  tyrannous,  and  violent  temper,  a  brutal 
craving  to  domineer,  which  alarmed  his  meek  nature.  At 
length,  when  but  ten  or  a  dozen  people  were  left,  Birotteau 
determined  to  start  up  when  the  outer  door  of  the  audience 
chamber  creaked  on  its  hinges,  and  to  put  himself  on  a  level 
with  the  great  public  speaker  with  the  remark,  "I  am  Birot- 
teau !  "  The  first  grenadier  who  flung  himself  into  the  re- 
doubt at  Borodino  did  not  display  more  courage  than  the  per- 
fumer when  he  made  up  his  mind  to  carry  out  this  manoeuvre. 

"  After  all,"  said  he  to  himself,  "  I  am  his  deputy-mayor," 
and  he  rose  to  give  his  name. 

Francois  Keller's  countenance  took  on  an  amiable  expres- 
sion ;  clearly  he  meant  to  be  civil ;  he  glanced  at  Birotteau's 
red  ribbon,  turned,  opened  the  door  of  his  cabinet,  and  indi- 
cated the  way  ;  but  stayed  behind  himself  for  a  while  to  speak 
with  two  new-comers  who  sprang  up  the  staircase  with  tem- 
pestuous speed. 

"  Decazes  would  like  to  speak  with  you,"  said  one  of  these 
two. 

"  It  is  a  question  of  making  an  end  of  the  Pavilion  Marsan  ! 
The  King  sees  clearly.  He  is  coming  over  to  us  !  "  cried  the 
Other. 

•'We  will  all  go  to  the  Chambers,"  returned  the  banker, 

H 


216  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

and  he  entered  his  cabinet  with  the  air  of  the  frog  that  would 
fain  be  an  ox. 

"How  can  he  think  of  his  own  affairs?"  thought  Cesar, 
overwhelmed. 

The  radiance  of  the  sun  of  superiority  dazzled  the  per- 
fumer, as  the  light  blinds  those  insects  which  can  only  exist 
in  the  shade  or  in  the  dusk  of  a  summer  night. 

Birotteau  saw  a  copy  of  the  Budget  lying  on  a  vast  table, 
among  piles  of  pamphlets  and  volumes  of  the  "  Moniteur," 
which  lay  open,  displaying  marked  passages,  past  utterances 
of  a  minister,  which  were  shortly  to  be  hurled  at  his  head ;  he 
was  to  be  made  to  eat  his  words  amid  the  plaudits  of  a  crowd 
of  dunces,  incapable  of  comprehending  that  events  modify 
everything.  On  another  table  stood  a  collection  of  boxes 
full  of  papers,  a  heap  of  memorials  and  projects,  the  thousand 
and  one  reports  confided  to  a  man  in  whose  exchequer  every 
nascent  industry  endeavors  to  dip. 

The  regal  splendor  of  the  cabinet,  filled  with  pictures  and 
statues  and  works  of  art ;  the  litter  on  the  mantel ;  the  accum- 
ulations of  documents  relating  to  business  concerns  at  home 
and  abroad,  heaped  up  like  bales  of  goods — all  these  things 
impressed  Birotteau ;  he  dwindled  in  his  own  eyes,  his  ner- 
vousness increased,  the  blood  ran  cold  in  his  veins. 

On  Francois  Keller's  desk  there  lay  some  bundles  of  bills, 
letters  of  exchange,  and  circular-letters.  To  these  the  great 
man  addressed  himself;  and,  as  he  swiftly  put  his  signature  to 
those  that  required  no  examination,  "To  what  do  I  owe  the 
honor  of  your  visit,  sir?      asked  he. 

At  these  words  addressed  to  him  alone,  by  the  voice  that 
spoke  to  all  Europe,  while  the  restless  hand  never  ceased  to 
traverse  the  paper,  the  poor  perfumer  felt  as  if  a  red-hot  iron 
had  been  thrust  through  his  vitals.  His  face  forthwith  as- 
sumed that  ingratiating  expression  with  which  the  banker  had 
grown  familiar  during  ten  years  of  experience  ;  the  expres- 
sion always  meant  that  the  wearers   desired   to  involve  the 


TO    WHAT    DO    I    OWE    THE    HONOR    OE    YOUR    VISIT,    SIR?' 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  217 

house  of  Keller  in  some  affair  of  great  importance  to  the 
would-be  borrowers  and  to  no  one  else,  an  expression  which 
shuts  the  banker's  doors  upon  them  at  once.  So  Francois 
Keller  shot  a  glance  at  Cesar,  a  Napoleonic  glance,  which 
seemed  to  go  through  the  perfumer's  head.  This  imitation 
of  their  Emperor  was  a  slight  piece  of  affectation  which 
certain  parvenus  permitted  themselves,  though  the  false  coin 
was  scarcely  a  passable  copy  of  the  true.  For  Cesar,  of  the 
extreme  Right  in  politics,  the  fanatical  partisan  of  the  Govern- 
ment, the  factor  in  the  monarchical  election,  that  glance  was 
like  the  stamp  which  a  custom-house  officer  sets  on  a  bale  of 
goods. 

"  I  do  not  want  to  take  up  your  minutes  unduly,  sir;  I  will 
be  brief.  I  have  come  on  a  simple  matter  of  private  business, 
to  know  if  you  will  open  a  loan  account  with  me.  As  an  ex- 
judge  of  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce  and  a  man  well-known 
at  the  Bank  of  France,  you  can  understand  that  if  I  had  bills 
to  discount  I  should  only  have  to  apply  to  the  bank  where 
you  are  a  governor.  I  have  had  the  honor  of  being  associ- 
ated in  my  functions  at  the  Tribunal  with  Monsieur  le  Baron 
Thibon,  the  head  of  the  bill-discounting  department,  and  he 
certainly  would  not  refuse  me.  But,  as  I  have  never  tried  to 
borrow  money  nor  accepted  a  bill,  my  signature  is  unknown, 
and  you  know  how  many  difficulties  lie  in  the  way  of  nego- 
tiating a  loan  in  such  a  case " 

Keller  moved  his  head  ;  and  Birotteau,  construing  this  as  a 
sign  of  impatience,  continued — 

"  The  fact  is,  sir,  that  I  have  engaged  in  a  speculation  in 
land,  outside  my  own  line  of  business " 

Francois  Keller,  still  signing  and  reading,  and,  to  all  ap- 
pearance, paying  no  attention  to  Cesar's  remarks,  turned  at 
this,  with  a  sign  that  he  was  following  what  was  said.  Birot- 
teau took  heart  ;  his  affair  was  in  a  promising  way,  he  thought, 
he  breathed  more  freely. 

"  Go  on  ;  I  understand,"  said  Keller  good-humoredly. 


218  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"lam  the  purchaser  of  one-half  of  the  building  land  neai 
the  Madeleine." 

"Yes.  I  heard  from  Nucingen  of  the  big  affair  that  the 
firm  of  Claparon  is  negotiating." 

"  Well,"  the  perfumer  went  on,  "  a  loan  of  a  hundred  thou- 
sand francs,  secured  on  my  share  of  the  land  or  on  my  busi- 
ness, would  suffice  to  tide  me  over  until  I  can  touch  the 
profits  which  must  shortly  accrue  from  a  venture  in  my  own 
way  of  business.  If  necessary,  I  would  cover  the  amount  by 
bills  drawn  on  a  new  firm — Popinot  &  Company — a  young 
house  which " 

Keller  seemed  to  be  very  little  interested  in  this  description 
of  the  firm  of  Popinot,  and  Birotteau  gathered  that  he  had 
somehow  taken  a  wrong  turn  ;  he  stopped ;  then,  in  dismay  at 
the  pause,  he  went  on  again — 

"As  for  the  interest,  we " 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  the  banker ;  "  the  thing  may  be  arranged, 
and  do  not  doubt  my  desire  to  meet  you  in  the  matter.  Oc- 
cupied as  I  am,  I  have  all  the  finances  of  Europe  on  my 
hands,  and  the  Chamber  absorbs  every  moment  of  my  time, 
so  you  will  not  be  surprised  to  hear  that  I  leave  the  investiga- 
tion of  a  vast  amount  of  regular  business  to  my  managers.  Go 
downstairs  and  see  my  brother  Adolphe  ;  explain  the  nature 
of  your  guarantees  to  him  ;  and,  if  he  assents,  return  here  with 
him  to-morrow  or  the  day  after,  at  the  time  when  I  look  into 
affairs  of  this  kind,  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning.  We  shall 
be  proud  and  happy  to  receive  your  confidence  ;  you  are  one 
of  the  consistent  Royalists ;  and  your  esteem  is  the  more  flat- 
tering, since  that  politically  we  may  find  ourselves  at  enmity." 

"Sir,"  said  the  perfumer,  elated  by  this  oratorical  flourish, 
"  I  am  as  deserving  of  the  honor  you  do  me  as  of  the  signal 

mark  of  royal  favor not  unmerited  by  the  discharge  of 

my  functions  at  the  Consular  Tribunal,  and  by  fighting  for 
the " 

"  Yes,"  continued  the  banker,  "  the  reputation  which  you 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  219 

enjoy  is  a  passport,  Monsieur  Birotteau.  You  are  sure  to 
propose  nothing  that  is  not  feasible,  and  you  can  reckon  upon 
our  cooperation." 

A  door,  which  Birotteau  had  not  noticed,  was  opened,  and 
a  woman  entered  ;  it  was  Mme.  Keller,  one  of  the  two  daugh- 
ters of  the  Comte  de  Gondreville,  a  peer  of  France. 

"  I  hope  I  shall  see  you,  dear,  before  you  go  to  the  Cham- 
ber," said  she. 

"It  is  two  o'clock,"  exclaimed  the  banker;  "the  battle 
has  begun.     Excuse  me,  sir,  the  question  is  one  of  upsetting  a 

ministry "  he  went  as  far  as  the  door  of  the  salon  with  the 

perfumer,  and  bade  a  man  in  livery  :  "Take  this  gentleman  to 
Monsieur  Adolphe." 

Birotteau  traversed  a  labyrinth  of  staircases  on  the  way  to 
a  private  office,  less  sumptuous  than  the  cabinet  of  the  head 
of  the  firm,  but  more  business-like  in  appearance ;  he  was 
borne  along  by  an  if,  that  easiest  pacing  mount  that  hope  can 
furnish ;  he  stroked  his  chin,  and  thought  that  the  great  man's 
compliments  augured  excellently  well  for  his  plans.  It  was 
regrettable  that  a  man  so  amiable,  so  capable,  so  great  an 
orator,  should  be  inimical  to  the  Bourbons. 

Still  full  of  these  illusions,  he  entered  M.  Adolphe  Keller's 
sanctum,  a  bare,  chilly-looking  room.  Dingy  curtains  hung 
in  the  windows,  the  floor  was  covered  with  a  much-worn 
carpet,  and  the  furniture  consisted  of  a  couple  of  cylinder 
desks  and  one  or  two  office  chairs.  This  cabinet  was  to  the 
first  as  the  kitchen  to  the  dining-room,  as  the  factory  to  the 
store.  Here  matters  of  business  were  penetrated  to  the  core, 
here  enterprises  were  analyzed,  and  preliminary  charges  levied 
by  the  bank  on  all  promising  undertakings.  Here  originated 
all  those  bold  strokes  for  which  the  Kellers  were  so  well  known 
in  the  highest  commercial  regions,  when  they  would  secure 
and  rapidly  exploit  a  monopoly  in  a  few  days.  Here,  too, 
omissions  on  the  part  of  the  legislature  received  careful  atten- 
tion, and  unblushing  demands  were  made  for  "sops  in  the 


220  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

pan  "  (in  the  language  of  the  Stock  Exchange)  ;  that  is  to  say, 
for  money  paid  in  consideration  for  small  indefinable  services, 
for  standing  godfather  to  an  infant  enterprise,  and  so  accred- 
iting it.  Here  were  woven  those  tissues  of  fraud  after  a  legal 
pattern,  which  consist  in  investing  money  as  a  sleeping- 
partner  in  some  concern  in  temporary  difficulties,  with  a  view 
to  slaughtering  the  affair  as  soon  as  it  succeeds ;  the  brothers 
would  lie  in  wait,  call  in  their  capital  at  a  critical  moment — 
an  ugly  manoeuvre  that  put  the  whole  thing  in  their  own 
hands  and  involved  the  hapless  active  partner  in  their  covet- 
ous toils. 

The  two  brothers  adopted  separate  rdles.  On  high  stood 
Francois,  the  politician,  the  man  of  brilliant  parts;  he  bore 
himself  like  a  king,  he  distributed  favors  and  promises,  he 
made  himself  agreeable  to  every  one.  Everything  was  easy 
when  you  spoke  with  him  ;  he  did  business  royally ;  he  poured 
out  the  heady  wine  of  fair  words,  which  intoxicated  inexperi- 
enced speculators  and  promoters  of  new  schemes ;  he  devel- 
oped their  own  ideas  for  them.  But  Adolphe  below  absolved 
his  brother  on  the  score  of  political  preoccupations,  and  clev- 
erly raked  in  the  winnings ;  he  was  the  responsible  brother, 
the  one  who  was  hard  to  persuade,  so  that  there  were  two 
words  to  every  bargain  concluded  with  that  treacherous  house, 
and  not  seldom  the  gracious  Yes  of  the  sumptuous  cabinet  was 
transmuted  into  a  dry  No  in  Adolphe's  office. 

This  manoeuvre  of  delay  gained  time  for  reflection,  and 
often  served  to  amuse  less  skillful  competitors. 

Adolphe  Keller  was  chatting  with  the  famous  Palma,  the 
trusted  counselor  of  the  house,  who  withdrew  as  Birotteau 
came  in.  The  perfumer  explained  his  errand  ;  and  Adolphe, 
the  more  cunning  of  the  two  brothers,  lynx-natured,  keen- 
eyed,  thin-lipped,  hard-favored,  listened  to  him  with  lowered 
head,  watching  the  applicant  over  his  spectacles,  eying  him 
the  while  with  what  must  be  called  the  banker's  gaze,  in 
which  there  is  something   of  the  vulture,  something  of  the 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  221 

attorney ;  a  gaze  at  once  covetous  and  cold,  clear  and  inscru- 
table, sombre  and  ablaze  with  light. 

tl  Will  you  be  so  good  as  to  send  me  the  documents  relative 
to  this  Madeleine  affair,"  said  he,  "since  therein  lies  the 
guarantee  of  the  account ;  they  must  be  examined  into  before 
we  begin  to  discuss  the  case  on  its  merits.  If  the  affair  is 
satisfactory,  we  might  possibly,  to  avoid  encumbering  you,  be 
content  to  take  part  of  the  profits  instead  of  discount." 

"Come,"  said  Birotteau  to  himself,  as  he  went  home 
again,  "I  see  his  drift.  Like  the  hunted  beaver,  I  must  part 
with  some  Of  my  skin.  It  is  better  to  lose  your  fleece  than  to 
lose  your  life." 

He  went  upstairs  in  high  spirits,  and  his  mirth  had  a 
genuine  ring. 

"  I  am  saved,"  he  told  Cesarine  ;  "  Keller  will  open  a  loan 
account  with  me." 

But  not  until  the  29th  of  December  could  Birotteau  gain 
admittance  a  second  time  to  Adolphe  Keller's  office.  On  the 
occasion  of  his  first  call,  Adolphe  was  six  leagues  away  from 
Paris,  looking  at  some  property  which  the  great  orator  had  a 
mind  to  buy.  The  next  time  both  the  Kellers  were  closeted 
together,  and  could  see  no  one  that  morning ;  it  was  a  ques- 
tion of  a  tender  for  a  loan  proposed  by  the  Chambers,  and 
they  begged  M.  Birotteau  to  return  on  the  following  Friday. 
These  delays  were  heartbreaking  to  the  perfumer ;  but  Friday 
came  at  last,  and  Birotteau  sat  by  the  fire  in  the  office,  with 
the  daylight  falling  full  on  his  face,  and  Adolphe  Keller, 
sitting  opposite,  was  saying,  as  he  held  up  the  notarial  deeds, 
•'  These  are  all  right,  sir ;  but  what  proportion  of  the  pur- 
chase-money have  you  paid  ?  " 

"A  hundred  and  forty  thousand  francs." 

"  In  money?  " 

"In  bills." 

"  Have  they  been  met?  " 

"They  have  not  fallen  due." 


22'2  CESAR   BIROTTEAU. 

"But  suppose  that  you  have  given  more  for  the  land  than 
it  is  actually  worth  (taking  it  at  its  present  value),  where  is 
our  guarantee?  We  should  have  no  security  but  the  good 
opinion  which  you  inspire  and  the  esteem  in  which  you  are 
held.  Business  is  not  based  on  sentiment.  If  you  had  paid 
two  hundred  thousand  francs,  supposing  that  you  have 
given  too  much  by  a  hundred  thousand  francs  to  get  pos- 
session of  the  land,  we  should  in  that  case  have  at  any  rate 
a  guarantee  of  a  hundred  thousand  francs  for  the  hundred 
thousand  you  want  to  borrow.  The  result  for  us  would 
be  that  we  should  be  owners  of  the  land  in  your  place,  by 
paying  your  share ;  in  that  case  we  must  know  if  it  is  a 
good  piece  of  business.  For  if  we  are  to  wait  five  years  to 
double  our  capital,  it  would  better  to  put  the  money  out  to 
interest  through  the  bank.  So  many  things  may  happen. 
You  want  to  draw  an  accommodation  bill  to  meet  your  bills 
when  they  fall  due  ?  It  is  a  risky  thing  to  do  !  You  go  back 
to  take  a  leap  better.     This  is  not  in  our  way  of  business." 

For  Birotteau,  it  was  as  if  the  executioner  had  touched  his 
shoulder  with  the  branding-iron.     He  lost  his  head. 

"Let  us  see,"  said  Adolphe,  "my  brother  takes  a  warm 
interest  in  you ;  he  spoke  of  you  to  me.  Let  us  look  into 
your  affairs,"  he  added,  and  he  glanced  at  the  perfumer  with 
the  expression  of  a  courtesan  pressed  for  a  quarter's  rent. 

Birotteau  became  a  Molineux,  and  acted  the  part  of  the 
man  at  whom  he  had  laughed  so  loftily.  Kept  in  play  by  the 
banker,  who  took  a  pleasure  in  unwinding  the  skein  of  the 
poor  man's  thoughts,  and  showed  himself  as  expert  in  the  art 
of  examining  a  merchant  as  the  elder  Popinot  was  skilled  in 
unloosing  a  criminal's  tongue,  Cesar  told  the  story  of  his 
business  career ;  he  brought  the  Pate  des  Sultanes  and  the 
Toilet  Lotion  upon  the  scene ;  he  gave  a  complete  account  of 
his  dealings  with  Roguin,  and,  finally,  of  the  lawsuit  with 
regard  to  that  mortgage  from  which  he  had  reaped  no  benefit. 
He  saw  Keller's  musing  smile  and  jerk  of  the  head  from  time 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  223 

to  time,  and  said  to  himself,  "■  He  is  giving  an  ear  to  me  ! 
He  is  interested;  I  shall  have  my  loan!"  and  Adolphe 
Keller  was  laughing  at  Birotteau,  as  Birotteau  himself  had 
laughed  at  Molineux.  Carried  away  by  the  impulse  of  loqua- 
city peculiar  to  those  people  on  whom  misfortune  has  an 
intoxicating  effect,  Cesar  showed  himself  as  he  really  was  ;  he 
helped  the  banker  to  take  his  measure  when  he  suggested  as  his 
final  expedient  the  Cephalic  Oil  and  the  firm  of  Popinot  by 
way  of  a  guarantee.  Led  away  by  a  delusive  hope,  he  allowed 
Adolphe  Keller  to  fathom  him  and  examine  into  his  affairs, 
until  Adolphe  Keller  saw  in  the  man  before  him  a  Royalist 
blockhead  on  the  brink  of  bankruptcy.  Then,  delighted  at 
the  prospect  of  this  failure  of  the  deputy-mayor  of  his  arron- 
dissement,  of  a  man  whose  party  was  in  power,  who  had  been 
but  lately  decorated,  Adolphe  told  Birotteau  plainly  that  he 
could  neither  open  a  loan  account  with  him  nor  speak  on  his 
behalf  to  the  orator  brother,  the  great  Francois.  If  Francois 
were  inclined  to  extend  an  imbecile  generosity  to  a  political 
adversary,  and  to  come  to  the  aid  of  a  man  who  held  opinions 
diametrically  opposed  to  his  own,  he,  Adolphe,  had  no  mind 
that  his  brother  should  be  a  dupe  ;  he  would  do  all  that  in 
him  lay  to  prevent  his  brother  from  holding  out  a  helping 
hand  to  one  of  Napoleon's  old  antagonists,  to  a  man  who  was 
wounded  at  Saint-Roch.  Birotteau,  exasperated  at  this,  tried 
to  say  something  about  covetousness  in  the  high-places  of  the 
financial  world,  of  hard-heartedness  and  sham  philanthropy; 
but  he  was  overcome  with  such  terrible  distress  that  he  could 
scarcely  stammer  out  a  few  words  about  the  institution  of  the 
Bank  of  France,  to  which  the  Kellers  had  recourse. 

"But  the  Bank  of  France  will  never  make  an  advance 
which  a  private  bank  declines,"  said  Adolphe  Keller. 

"It  has  always  seemed  to  me,"  said  Birotteau,  "that  the 
bank  was  not  fulfilling  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  estab- 
lished, when  the  governors  congratulate  themselves  on  a 
balance-sheet  in  which  they  have  only  lost  one  or  two  hun- 


224  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

dred  thousand  francs  in  transactions  with  the  mercantile 
world  of  Paris ;  it  is  the  province  of  the  bank  to  watch  over 
and  foster  trade." 

Adolphe  began  to  smile,  and  rose  to  his  feet  like  a  man 
who  is  bored. 

"  If  the  bank  began  to  finance  all  the  men  in  difficulties 
on  'Change,  where  rascality  congregates  in  the  slipperiest 
places  of  the  financial  world,  the  bank  would  file  her  schedule 
before  a  year  was  out.  The  bank  is  hard  put  to  it  as  it  is  to 
guard  against  accommodation  bills  and  fraudulent  letters  of 
exchange,  and  how  would  it  be  possible  to  examine  into  the 
affairs  of  every  one  who  should  be  minded  to  apply  for  assist- 
ance? " 

"  I  want  ten  thousand  francs  for  to-morrow,  Saturday  the 
30th;  and  where  are  they  to  come  from  ?  "  Birotteau  asked 
himself,  as  he  crossed  the  court. 

When  the  31st  is  a  holiday,  payment  is  due  on  the  30th, 
according  to  custom.  Cesar's  eyes  were  so  full  of  tears  that, 
as  he  reached  the  great  gateway,  he  scarcely  saw  a  handsome 
English  horse,  covered  with  foam,  that  pulled  up  sharply  at 
the  gate,  and  one  of  the  neatest  cabriolets  to  be  seen  in  the 
streets  of  Paris.  He  would  fain  have  been  run  over  by  the 
cabriolet ;  it  would  be  an  accidental  death,  and  the  confusion 
in  his  affairs  would  have  been  set  down  to  the  suddenness  of 
the  catastrophe.  He  did  not  recognize  du  Tillet's  slender 
figure  in  faultless  morning  dress,  or  see  him  fling  the  reins  to 
his  servant  and  put  a  rug  over  the  back  of  the  thoroughbred. 

"What  brings  you  here?"  asked  du  Tillet,  addressing  his 
old  master. 

Du  Tillet  knew  quite  well  why  Birotteau  had  come.  The 
Kellers  had  made  inquiries  of  Claparon,  and  Claparon,  taking 
his  cue  from  du  Tillet,  had  blighted  the  perfumer's  old- 
established  business  reputation.  The  tears  in  the  unlucky 
merchant's  eyes  told  the  tale  sufficiently  plain,  in  spite  of 
his  sudden  effort  to  keep  them  back. 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  225 

"  Perhaps  you  have  been  asking  these  Turks  to  oblige  you 
in  some  way,"  said  du  Tillet,  "cut-throats  of  commerce  that 
they  are,  who  have  played  many  a  mean  trick  ;  they  will 
make  a  corner  in  indigo,  for  instance  ;  they  lower  rice,  for- 
cing holders  to  sell  cheap,  so  that  they  can  get  the  game  into 
their  own  hands  and  control  the  market ;  they  are  inhuman 
pirates,  who  know  neither  law,  nor  faith,  nor  conscience. 
You  cannot  know  what  things  they  are  capable  of  doing. 
They  will  open  a  loan  account  with  you  if  you  have  some 
promising  bit  of  business  ;  and,  as  soon  as  you  have  gone  too 
far  to  draw  back,  they  will  pull  you  up  and  put  pressure  upon 
you  till  you  make  the  whole  affair  over  to  them  for  next  to  noth- 
ing. Pretty  stories  they  could  tell  you  at  Havre  and  Bordeaux 
and  Marseilles  about  the  Kellers  !  Politics  are  a  cloak  that 
covers  a  lot  of  dirty  doings,  I  can  tell  you  !  So  I  make  them 
useful  without  scruple.  Let  us  take  a  turn  or  two,  my  dear 
Birotteau.  Joseph,  walk  the  horse  up  and  down,  he  is  over- 
heated, and  a  thousand  crowns  is  a  big  investment  in  horse- 
flesh." 

He  turned  toward  the  boulevard. 

"  Now,  my  dear  master  (for  you  used  to  be  my  master),  is 
it  money  that  you  need  ?  And  they  have  asked  you  for  secu- 
rity, the  wretches!  Well,  for  my  own  part,  I  know  you  ;  and 
I  can  offer  to  give  you  cash  against  your  bills.  I  have  made 
my  money  honorably  and  with  unheard-of  toil.  I  went  in 
quest  of  fortune  to  Germany  !  At  this  time  of  day,  I  may  tell 
you  this — that  I  bought  up  the  King's  debts  there  for  forty 
per  cent,  of  their  value  ;  your  guarantee  was  very  useful  to  me 
then,  and  I  am  grateful.  If  you  want  ten  thousand  francs, 
they  are  at  your  service." 

"  What  !  du  Tillet,"  cried  Cesar,  "do  you  really  mean  it? 
Are  you  not  making  game  of  me?  Yes,  I  am  a  little  pressed 
for  money,  just  for  the  moment " 

"  I  know  ;  Roguin's  affair,"  returned  du  Tillet.     "Eh  !  yes. 
I  myself  have  been  let  in  there  for  ten  thousand  francs,  which 
15 


226  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

the  old  rogue  borrowed  of  me  to  run  away  with  ;  but  Madame 
Roguin  will  repay  the  money  out  of  her  claims  on  his  estate. 
I  advised  her,  poor  thing,  not  to  be  so  foolish  as  to  give  up 
her  fortune  to  pay  debts  contracted  for  a  mistress ;  it  would  be 
very  well  if  she  could  pay  them  all,  but  how  is  she  to  make 
distinctions  in  favor  of  this  or  that  creditor  to  the  prejudice 
of  others?  You  are  no  Roguin  ;  I  know  you,"  continued  du 
Tillet  ;  "  you  would  rather  blow  your  brains  out  than  cause 
me  to  lose  a  sou.  Here  we  are  in  the  Rue  de  la  Chaussee- 
d'Antin  ;  come  up  and  see  me." 

It  pleased  the  young  upstart  to  take  his  old  employer,  not 
through  the  offices,  but  by  way  of  the  private  entry,  and  to  walk 
deliberately,  so  as  to  give  him  a  full  view  of  a  handsome  and 
luxuriously  furnished  dining-room,  adorned  with  pictures 
bought  in  Germany  ;  through  two  drawing-rooms,  more  splen- 
did and  elegant  than  any  rooms  that  Birotteau  had  yet  seen 
save  in  the  Due  de  Lenoncourt's  house.  The  good  citizen 
was  dazzled  by  the  gilding,  the  works  of  art,  the  costly  knick- 
knacks,  precious  vases,  and  countless  little  details.  All  the 
glories  of  Constance's  rooms  paled  before  this  display ;  and 
knowing,  as  he  did,  the  cost  of  his  own  extravagance — 
"  Where  can  he  have  found  all  these  millions?  "  said  he  to 
himself. 

Then  they  entered  a  bedroom,  which  as  much  surpassed  his 
wife's  as  the  mansion  of  a  great  singer  at  the  opera  surpasses 
the  third-floor  dwelling  of  some  supernumerary.  The  ceiling 
was  covered  with  violet  satin  relieved  with  silken  folds  of  white, 
and  the  white  fur  of  an  ermine  rug  beside  the  bed  brought  out 
in  contrast  all  the  violet  tints  of  a  carpet  from  the  Levant. 
The  furniture  and  the  accessories  were  novel  in  form,  and 
exhibited  the  verv  refinement  of  extravagance.  Birotteau 
stopped  in  front  of  an  exquisite  timepiece,  with  a  Cupid  and 
Psyche  upon  it,  a  replica  of  one  which  had  just  been  made 
for  a  celebrated  banker.  At  length  master  and  assistant 
reached  a  cabinet,  the  dainty  sanctum  of  a  fashionable  dandy, 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  227 

redolent  rather  of  love  than  of  finance.  It  was  Mrae.  Roguin, 
doubtless,  who,  in  her  gratitude  for  the  care  and  thought  given 
to  her  fortune,  had  bestowed,  by  way  of  a  thank-offering,  the 
paper-cutter  of  wrought  gold,  the  carved  malachite  paper- 
weights, and  all  the  costly  gewgaws  of  unbridled  luxury.  The 
carpet,  one  of  the  richest  products  of  the  Belgian  loom,  was 
as  great  a  surprise  to  the  eyes  as  its  soft,  thick  pile  to  the  tread. 
Du  Tillet  drew  a  chair  to  the  fire  for  the  poor  dazzled  and  be- 
wildered perfumer. 

"  Will  you  breakfast  with  me  ?  "  He  rang  the  bell ;  it  was 
answered  by  a  servant,  who  was  better  dressed  than  the  visitor. 

"Ask  Monsieur  Legras  to  come  up  and  then  tell  Joseph  to 
return,  you  will  find  him  at  the  door  of  Keller's  bank  ;  and 
you  can  go  to  Adolphe  Keller's  house  and  say  that,  instead 
of  seeing  him  now,  I  shall  wait  till  he  goes  on  'Change. 
Send  up  breakfast,  and  be  quick  about  it." 

This  talk  dazed  the  perfumer. 

"  So  he,  du  Tillet,  makes  that  formidable  Adolphe  Keller 
come  to  him  at  his  whistle,  as  if  he  were  a  dog  !  " 

A  hop-o'-my-thumb  of  a  page  came  in  and  spread  a  table 
so  slender  that  it  had  escaped  Birotteau's  notice,  setting 
thereon  a  Strasbourg  pie,  a  bottle  of  Bordeaux  wine,  and 
various  luxuries  which  did  not  appear  on  Birotteau's  table 
twice  in  a  quarter,  on  high-days  and  holidays.  Du  Tillet 
was  enjoying  himself.  His  feeling  of  hatred  for  the  one  man 
who  had  a  right  to  despise  him  diffused  itself  like  a  warm 
glow  through  his  veins,  till  the  sight  of  Birotteau  stirred  in 
the  depths  of  his  nature  the  same  sensations  that  the  spectacle 
of  a  sheep  struggling  for  its  life  against  a  tiger  might  give. 
A  generous  thought  flashed  across  him;  he  asked  himself 
whether  he  had  not  carried  his  vengeance  far  enough  ;  he 
hesitated  between  the  counsels  of  a  newly  awakened  pity  and 
those  of  a  hate  grown  drowsy. 

"  Commercially  speaking,  I  can  annihilate  the  man,"  he 
thought ;  "  I  have  power  of  life  and  death  over  him,  over  his 


228  CESAR  EIROTTEAU. 

wife,  who  kept  me  on  the  rack,  and  his  daughter,  whose  hand 
once  seemed  to  me  to  grasp  a  whole  fortune.  I  have  his 
money  as  it  is,  so  let  us  be  content  to  let  the  poor  simpleton 
swim  to  the  end  of  his  tether,  which  I  shall  hold." 

But  honest  folk  are  wanting  in  tact ;  they  do  what  seems 
good  to  them  without  calculating  its  effect  on  others,  because 
they  themselves  are  straightforward,  and  have  no  after- 
thoughts. So  Birotteau  filled  up  the  measure  of  his  own  mis- 
fortune ;  he  irritated  the  tiger;  all  unwittingly  he  sent  a  shaft 
home,  and  made  an  implacable  enemy  of  him  at  a  word,  by 
his  praise,  by  giving  expression  to  his  honest  thoughts,  by  the 
sheer  light-heartedness  which  is  the  gift  of  a  blameless  con- 
science. The  cashier  came  in  ;  and  du  Tillet  said,  looking 
toward  Cesar,  "  Monsieur  Legras,  bring  me  ten  thousand 
francs  in  cash,  and  a  bill  for  the  amount  payable  to  my  order 
in  ninety  days  by  this  gentleman,  who  is  Monsieur  Birotteau, 
as  you  know." 

Du  Tillet  waited  on  his  guest,  and  poured  out  a  glass  of 
Bordeaux  wine  for  him  ;  and  Birotteau,  who  thought  himself 
saved,  laughed  convulsively,  fingered  his  watch-chain,  and 
did  not  touch  the  food  until  his  ex-assistant  said,  "  You  do 
not  eat."  In  this  way  he  laid  bare  the  depths  of  the  gulf 
into  which  du  Tillet's  hand  had  plunged  him,  while  the  hand 
which  had  drawn  him  out  was  still  stretched  over  him,  and 
might  yet  plunge  him  back  again.  When  the  cashier  re- 
turned, and  the  bill  had  been  accepted,  and  Cesar  felt  the  ten 
bank-notes  in  his  pocket,  he  could  no  longer  contain  his  joy. 
But  a  moment  ago  the  news  that  he  could  not  meet  his  en- 
gagements seemed  about  to  be  published  abroad  through  his 
quarter,  the  bank  must  know  it,  he  must  confess  that  he  was 
ruined  to  his  wife ;  now  everything  was  safe  !  The  joy  of 
his  deliverance  was  as  keen  as  the  torture  of  impending  bank- 
ruptcy had  been.  Tears  filled  the  poor  man's  eyes  in  spite 
of  himself. 

"What  can  be  the  matter,  my  dear  master?"  asked  du 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  229 

Tillet.  "Would  you  not  do  to-morrow  for  me  what  I  am 
doing  to-day  for  you?  Isn't  it  as  simple  as  saying  good- 
day?" 

"  Du  Tillet,"  said  the  worthy  man,  with  solemn  emphasis, 
as  he  rose  and  took  his  ex-assistant  by  the  hand,  "I  restore 
you  to  your  old  place  in  my  esteem." 

"  What !  had  I  forfeited  it  ?  "  asked  du  Tillet ;  and,  for  all 
his  prosperity,  he  felt  this  rude  home-thrust,  and  his  color 
rose. 

"  Forfeited not  exactly  that,"  said  Birotteau,  thunder- 
struck by  his  folly  ;   "  people  talked  about  you  and  Madame 

Roguin.     The  devil !  another  man's  wife " 

•  "You  are  beating  about  the  bush,  old  boy,"  thought  du 
Tillet,  in  an  old  phrase  learned  in  his  earlier  days. 

And  even  as  that  thought  crossed  his  mind,  he  returned  to 
his  old  design.  He  would  lay  this  virtue  low,  he  would 
trample  it  under  foot ;  all  Paris  should  point  the  finger  of 
scorn  at  the  honest  and  honorable  man  who  had  caught  him, 
du  Tillet,  with  his  hand  in  the  till.  Every  hatred  of  every 
kind,  political  or  private,  between  woman  and  woman,  or  be- 
tween man  and  man,  dates  from  some  similar  detection.  There 
is  no  cause  for  hate  in  compromised  interests,  in  a  wound,  nor 
even  in  a  box  on  the  ear ;  such  injuries  as  these  are  not  irre- 
parable.    But  to  be  found  out  in  some  base  piece  of  iniquity, 

to  be  caught  in  the  act  ! The  duel  that  ensues  between 

the  criminal  and  the  discoverer  of  the  crime  cannot  but  be  to 
the  death. 

"Oh  !  Madame  Roguin,"  said  du  Tillet  laughingly,  "  but 
isn't  that  rather  a  feather  in  a  young  man's  cap?  I  under- 
stand you,  my  dear  master,  they  must  have  told  you  that  he 
lent  me  money.  Well,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  I  who  have  re- 
established her  finances,  which  were  curiously  involved  in  her 
husband's  affairs.  My  fortune  has  been  honestly  made,  as  I 
have  just  told  you.  I  had  nothing,  as  you  know.  Young 
men  sometimes  find  themselves  in  terrible  straits,  and  in  dire 


230  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

need  one  may  strain  a  point  ;  but  if,  like  the  Republic,  one 
has  made  a  forced  loan  now  and  again,  why,  one  returns  it 
afterward,  and  is  as  honest  as  France  herself." 

"Just  so,"  said  Cesar.  "  My  boy — God — Isn't  it  Voltaire 
who  says — 

"  '  He  made  of  repentance  the  virtue  of  mortals  ?  '  " 

"So  long  as  one  does  not  take  his  neighbor's  money  in  a 
base  and  cowardly  way,"  du  Tillet  continued,  smarting  once 
more  under  this  application  of  verse  ;  "  as  if  you,  for  instance, 
were  to  fail  before   the  three  months  are  out,  and  it  would 

be  all  up  with  my  ten  thousand  francs " 

"I  fail?"  cried  Birotteau  (he  had  taken  three  glasses  of 
wine,  and  happiness  had  gone  to  his  head).  "  My  opinions 
of  bankruptcy  are  well  known.  A  failure  is  commercial 
death.     I  should  die." 

"  Long  life  to  you  !  "  said  du  Tillet. 

'■',  To  your  prosperity  !  "  returned  the  perfumer.  "  Why  do 
you  not  come  to  me  for  your  perfumery  ?  " 

"Upon  my  word,"  said  du  Tillet,  "I  confess  that  I  am 
afraid  to  meet  Madame  Cesar,  she  always  made  an  impression 

upon  me  ;  and  if  you  were  not  my  master,  faith,  I " 

"  Oh  !  you  are  not  the  first  who  has  thought  her  handsome, 
and  wanted   her,   but  she  loves  me  !       Well,   du  Tillet,   my 
friend,  do  not  do  things  by  halves  !  " 
"What?" 

Birotteau  explained  the  affair  of  the  building  land,  and  du 
Tillet  opened  his  eyes,  complimented  Cesar  upon  his  acumen 
and  foresight,  and  spoke  highly  of  the  prospects. 

"Oh,  well,  I  am  much  pleased  to  have  your  approbation; 
you  are  supposed  to  have  one  of  the  longest  heads  in  the  bank- 
ing line,  du  Tillet !  You  can  negotiate  a  loan  from  the  Bank 
of  France  for  me  until  the  Cephalic  Oil  has  made  its  way." 

"I  can  send  you  to  the  firm  of  Nucingen,"  answered  du 
Tillet,  inwardly  vowing  that  his  victim  should  dance  the  whole 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  231 

mazy  round  of  bankruptcy.     He  sat  down  to  his  desk  to  write 
the  following  letter  to  the  Baron  de  Nucingen  : 

"  My  dear  Baron  : — The  bearer  of  this  letter  is  M.  Cesar 
Birotteau,  deputy-mayor  of  the  second  arrondissement,  and 
one  of  the  best  known  manufacturing  perfumers  in  Paris.  He 
desires  to  be  put  in  communication  with  you ;  you  need  not 
hesitate  to  do  anything  that  he  asks  of  you,  and  by  obliging 
him  you  oblige  your  friend, 

"F.  du  Tillet." 

Du  Tillet  put  no  dot  over  the  i  in  his  name.  Among  his 
business  associates  this  clerical  error  was  a  sign  which  they  all 
understood,  and  it  was  always  made  of  set  purpose ;  it  an- 
nulled the  heartiest  recommendations,  the  warmest  praise  and 
instance  in  the  body  of  the  letter.  On  receiving  such  a  note 
as  this,  where  the  very  exclamation-marks  breathed  entreaty, 
in  which  du  Tillet,  figuratively  speaking,  went  down  on  his 
knees,  his  associates  knew  that  the  writer  had  been  unable  to 
refuse  the  letter  which  was  to  be  regarded  as  null  and  void. 
At  sight  of  that  undotted  i,  the  receiver  of  the  letter  forth- 
with dismissed  the  applicant  with  empty  compliments  and 
vain  promises.  Not  a  few  men  of  considerable  reputation  in 
the  world  are  put  off  like  children  by  this  trick ;  for  men  of 
business,  bankers,  bill-discounters,  and  advocates  have  one 
and  all  two  methods  of  signing  their  names;  one  is  a  dead 
letter,  the  other  living.  The  shrewdest  are  deceived  by  it. 
You  must  have  felt  the  double  effect  of  a  cold  communication 
and  a  warm  one  to  discover  the  stratagem. 

"You  are  saving  me,  du  Tillet,"  said  Cesar,  as  he  read  the 
present  specimen. 

"  Oh  dear  me,"  said  du  Tillet,  "just  ask  Nucingen  for  the 
money,  and  when  he  has  read  my  letter  he  will  let  you  have 
all  that  you  want.  Unluckily,  my  own  capital  is  locked  up 
at  present,  or  I  would  not  send  you  to  the  prince  of  bankers, 


232  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

for  the  Kellers  are  dwarfs  compared  with  Nucingen.  He  is  a 
second  Law.  With  my  bill  of  exchange,  you  will  be  ready 
for  the  15th,  and  after  that  we  will  see.  Nucingen  and  I  are 
the  best  friends  in  the  world ;  he  would  not  disoblige  me  for 
a  million." 

"It  is  as  good  as  a  guarantee,"  said  Birotteau  to  himself, 
and  as  he  went  away  his  heart  thrilled  with  gratitude  for  du 
Tillet.  "Ah,  well,"  he  thought,  "a.  good  deed  never  loses 
its  reward,"  and  he  fell  incontinently  to  moralizing.  Yet 
there  was  one  bitter  drop  in  his  cup  of  happiness.  He  had, 
it  is  true,  prevented  his  wife  from  looking  into  the  ledgers  for 
several  days.  Celestin  must  undertake  the  book-keeping  in 
addition  to  his  work,  with  some  help  from  his  master;  he 
could  have  wished  his  wife  and  daughter  to  remain  upstairs  in 
possession  of  the  beautiful  rooms  which  he  had  arranged  and 
furnished  for  them  ;  but  when  the  first  little  glow  of  enjoy- 
ment was  over,  Mme.  Cesar  would  have  died  sooner  than  re- 
nounce the  personal  supervision  of  the  details  of  the  business, 
"the  handle  of  the  frying-pan,"  to  use  her  own  Tourangeau 
expression. 

Birotteau  was  at  his  wits'  end  ;  he  had  done  everything  that 
he  could  think  of  to  conceal  the  symptoms  of  his  embarrass- 
ment from  her  eyes.  Constance  had  strongly  disapproved  of 
sending  in  the  accounts ;  she  had  scolded  the  assistants,  and 
asked  Celestin  if  he  meant  to  ruin  the  house,  believing  that 
the  idea  was  Celestin's  own.  And  Celestin  meekly  bore  the 
blame  by  Birotteau's  orders.  In  the  assistant's  opinion,  Mme. 
Cesar  governed  the  perfumer ;  and,  though  it  is  possible  to 
deceive  the  public,  those  of  the  household  always  know  who 
is  the  real  power  in  it.  The  confession  was  bound  to  come, 
and  that  soon,  for  du  Tillet's  loan  would  appear  in  the  books, 
and  must  be  accounted  for. 

As  Birotteau  came  in  at  the  door  he  saw,  not  without  a 
shudder,  that  Constance  was  at  her  post,  going  through  the 
amounts  due  to  be  paid,  and  doubtless  balancing  the  books. 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  233 

"  How  will  you  pay  these  to-morrow?"  she  asked  in  his 
ear,  when  he  took  his  place  beside  her. 

"With  money,"  he  replied,  drawing  the  bank-notes  from 
his  pocket,  with  a  sign  to  Celestin  to  take  them. 

"But  where  do  those  notes  come  from?" 

"I  will  tell  you  the  whole  story  to-night.  Celestin,  enter 
in  the  bill-book  a  bill  for  ten  thousand  francs  due  at  the  end 
of  March,  to  order  of  du  Tillet." 

"  Du  Tillet  !  "  echoed  Constance,  terror-stricken. 

"I  am  just  going  to  Popinot,"  said  Cesar.  "It  is  too 
bad  of  me ;  I  have  not  been  round  to  see  him  yet.  Is  his  oil 
selling?" 

"  The  three  hundred  bottles  which  he  brought  are  all  sold 
out." 

"  Birotteau,  do  not  go  out  again  ;  I  have  something  to  say 
to  you,"  said  Constance.  She  caught  her  husband's  arm, 
and  drew  him  to  her  room  in  a  hurry,  which,  under  any 
other  circumstances,  would  have  been  ludicrous.  "  Du  Til- 
let!" she  exclaimed,  when  the  husband  and  wife  were  to- 
gether, and  she  had  made  sure  that  there  was  no  one  but 
Cesarine  present;  "  Du  Tillet  robbed  us  of  three  thousand 
francs  !  And  you  are  doing  business  with  du  Tillet !  A 
monster  who — who  tried  to  seduce  me,"  she  said  in  his  ear. 

"A  bit  of  boyish  folly,"  said  Birotteau,  suddenly  trans- 
formed into  a  freethinker. 

"  Listen  to  me,  Birotteau ;  you  are  falling  out  of  your  old 
ways ;  you  never  go  to  the  factory  now.  There  is  something, 
I  can  feel  it.     Tell  me  about  it ;  I  want  to  know  everything." 

"Well,  then,"  said  Birotteau,  "we  have  nearly  been  ruined  ; 
we  were  ruined,  in  fact,  this  very  morning,  but  everything  is 
set  straight  again,"  and  he  told  the  dreadful  story  of  the  past 
two  weeks. 

"  So  that  was  the  cause  of  your  illness  !  "  exclaimed  Con- 
stance. 

"Yes,  mamma,"  cried  Cesarine.     "Father  has  been  very 


234  CESAR   BIROTTEAU. 

brave,  I  am  sure.     If  I  were  loved  as  he  loves  you,  I  would 
not  wish  more.     He  thought  of  nothing  but  your  trouble." 

"  My  dream  has  come  true,"  said  the  poor  wife,  and  pale, 
haggard,  and  terror-stricken,  she  sank  down  upon  the  sofa  by 
the  fireside.  "I  foresaw  all  this.  I  told  you  so  that  fatal 
night,  in  the  old  room  which  you  have  pulled  down;  we  shall 
have  nothing  left  but  our  eyes  to  cry  over  our  losses.  Poor 
Cesarine,  I " 

"  Come,  now;  so  that  is  what  you  say  !  "  cried  Birotteau. 
"  I  stand  in  need  of  courage,  and  you  are  damping  it !  " 

"Forgive  me,  dear,"  said  Constance,  grasping  Cesar's 
hand  in  hers,  with  a  tender  pressure  that  went  to  the  poor 
man's. heart.  "I  was  wrong;  the  misfortune  has  befallen  us, 
I  will  be  dumb,  resigned,  and  strong  to  bear  it.  No,  Cesar, 
you  shall  never  hear  a  complaint  from  me." 

She  sprang  into  Cesar's  arms,  and  said,  while  her  tears  fell 
fast,  "Take  courage,  dear.  I  should  have  courage  enough 
for  two,  if  it  were  needed." 

"  There  is  the  Oil,  dear  wife;  the  Oil  will  save  us." 

"  May  God  protect  us !  "  cried  Constance. 

"Will  not  Anselme  come  to  father's  assistance?"  asked 
Cesarine. 

"  I  will  go  to  him  now,"  exclaimed  Cesar.  His  wife's  heart- 
breaking tone  had  been  too  much  for  his  feelings ;  it  seemed 
that  he  did  not  know  her  yet,  after  nineteen  years  of  married 
life.  "Do  not  be  afraid,  Constance;  there  is  no  fear  now. 
Here,  read  Monsieur  du  Tillet's  letter  to  Monsieur  de  Nu- 
cingen  ;  he  is  sure  to  lend  us  the  money.  Between  then  and 
now  I  shall  have  gained  my  lawsuit.  Beside,"  he  added  (a 
lying  hope  to  fit  the  circumstances),  "  there  is  your  Uncle 
Pillerault.     Courage  is  all  that  is  wanted." 

"If  that  were  all?"  said  Constance,  smiling. 

Birotteau,  with  the  great  weight  taken  off  his  mind,  walked 
like  a  man  set  free  from  prison ;  but  within  himself  he  felt  the 
indefinable  exhaustion  consequent  on  mental  exertion  which 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  235 

had  made  heavy  demands  upon  his  nervous  system  and  re- 
quired more  than  the  daily  allowance  of  will-power ;  he  was 
conscious  of  the  deficit  when  a  man  has  drawn,  as  it  were, 
on  the  capital  of  his  vitality.  Birotteau  was  growing  old 
ahead  v. 

J 

Popinot's  store  in  the  Rue  des  Cinq-Diamants  had  under- 
gone great  changes  in  the  last  two  months.  It  had  been  re- 
painted. The  rows  of  bottles  ensconced  in  the  pigeon-hole 
shelves,  touched  up  with  paint,  rejoiced  the  eyes  of  every  mer- 
chant who  knows  the  signs  of  prosperity.  The  floor  of  the 
store  was  covered  with  packing-paper.  The  warehouse  con- 
tained certain  casks  of  oil,  for  which  the  devoted  Gaudissart 
had  procured  an  agency  for  Popinot.  The  books  were  kept 
upstairs  in  the  counting-room.  An  old  servant  had  been  in- 
stalled as  housekeeper  to  Popinot  and  his  three  assistants. 

Popinot  himself,  penned  in  a  cash  desk  in  the  corner  of  the 
store  screened  off  by  a  green  partition,  was  usually  arrayed  in 
a  green  baize  apron  and  a  pair  of  green-cloth  oversleeves, 
when  he  was  not  buried,  as  at  this  moment,  in  a  pile  of  papers. 
The  post  had  just  come  in,  and  Popinot,  with  a  pen  behind 
his  ear,  was  taking  in  handfuls  of  business  letters  and  orders, 
when  at  the  words,  "Well,  my  boy?"  he  raised  his  head, 
saw  his  late  employer,  locked  his  cash  desk,  and  came  for- 
ward joyously.  The  tip  of  the  young  man's  nose  was  red, 
for  there  was  no  fire  in  the  store  and  the  street-door  stood 
wide  open. 

"I  began  to  fear  that  you  were  never  coming  to  see  me," 
he  answered  respectfully. 

The  assistants  hurried  in,  eager  to  see  the  great  man  of  the 
perfumery  trade,  their  own  master's  partner,  the  deputy-mayor 
who  wore  the  red  ribbon.  Cesar  was  flattered  by  this  mute 
homage,  and  he  who  had  felt  so  small  in  the  Kellers'  bank 
must  needs  imitate  the  Kellers.  He  stroked  his  chin,  raised 
himself  on  tiptoe  once  or  twice  with  an  air,  and  poured  forth 
his  commonplaces. 


236  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"  Well,  my  dear  fellow,  are  you  always  up  early  in  the  morn- 
ings?" asked  he. 

"No,  we  don't  always  go  to  bed,"  said  Popinot;  "one 
must  succeed  by  hook  or  by  crook." 

"  Well,  what  did  I  tell  you?     My  Oil  is  a  fortune." 

"  Yes,  sir,  but  the  method  of  selling  it  counts  for  something; 
I  have  given  your  diamond  a  worthy  setting." 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,"  said  the  perfumer,  "how  are  we 
getting  on?     Have  any  profits  been  made?" 

"At  the  end  of  a  month  !  "  cried  Popinot.  "  Did  you  ex- 
pect it  ?  My  friend  Gaudissart  has  not  been  gone  much  more 
than  three  weeks.  He  took  a  post-chaise  without  telling  me 
about  it.  Oh  !  he  has  thrown  himself  into  this.  We  shall  owe  a 
good  deal  to  my  uncle  !  The  newspapers  will  cost  us  twelve 
thousand  francs,"  he  added  in  Birotteau's  ear. 

"  The  newspapers  !  "  cried  the  deputy-mayor. 

"  Have  you  not  seen  them?  " 

"No." 

"  Then  you  know  nothing  of  this,"  said  Popinot.  "  Twenty 
thousand  francs  in  placards,  frames,  and  prints  !  A  hundred 
thousand  bottles  paid  for  !  Oh  !  it  is  nothing  but  sacrifice  at 
this  moment.  We  are  bringing  out  the  Oil  on  a  large  scale. 
If  you  had  stepped  over  to  the  Faubourg,  where  I  have  often 
been  at  work  all  night,  you  would  have  seen  a  little  con- 
trivance of  mine  for  cracking  the  nuts,  which  is  not  to  be 
sneezed  at.  For  my  own  part,  during  the  last  five  days  I 
have  made  three  thousand  francs  in  commission  on  the  drug- 
gists' oils." 

"  What  a  good  head  !  "  said  Birotteau,  laying  his  hand  on 
little  Popinot's  hair,  and  stroking  it  as  if  the  young  man  had 
been  a  little  child,  "  I  foresaw  how  it  would  be." 

Several  people  came  into  the  store. 

"  Good-by  till  Sunday;  we  are  going  to  dine  then  with 
your  aunt,  Madame  Ragon,"  said  Birotteau,  and  he  left 
Popinot  to  his  own  affairs.     Evidently  the  roast  which  he  had 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  237 

scented  was  not  yet  ready  to  carve.  "  How  extraordinary  it 
is  !  An  assistant  becomes  a  merchant  in  twenty-four  hours,"  he 
thought,  and  Birotteau  was  as  much  taken  aback  by  Popinot's 
prosperity  and  self-possession  as  by  du  Tillet's  luxurious  rooms. 
"Here  is  Anselme  drawing  himself  up  a  bit  when  I  put  my 
hand  on  his  head,  as  if  he  were  a  Francois  Keller  already." 

It  did  not  occur  to  Birotteau  that  the  assistants  were  look- 
ing on,  and  that  the  head  of  an  establishment  must  preserve 
his  dignity  in  his  own  house.  Here,  as  in  du  Tillet's  case,  the 
good  man  had  made  a  blunder  in  the  kindness  of  his  heart, 
and  the  real  feeling  expressed  in  that  homely  familiar  way 
would  have  mortified  any  one  but  Anselme. 

The  Sunday  dinner-party  at  the  Ragons'  house  was  destined 
to  be  the  last  festivity  in  the  nineteen  years  of  Cesar's  married 
life,  the  life  which  had  been  so  completely  happy.  The 
Ragons  lived  on  the  third  floor  of  a  quaint  and  rather  stately 
old  house  in  the  Rue  du  Petit-Bourbon-Saint-Sulpice.  Over 
the  paneled  walls  of  their  rooms  danced  eighteen-century 
shepherdesses  in  hooped  petticoats,  amid  browsing  eighteen- 
century  sheep  ;  and  the  old  people  themselves  belonged  to 
the  bourgeoisie  of  that  bygone  century,  with  its  solemn 
gravity,  its  quaint  habits  and  customs,  its  respectful  attitude 
to  the  noblesse,  its  loyal  devotion  to  church  and  King. 

The  timepieces,  the  linen,  the  plates  and  dishes,  all  the  fur- 
niture, in  fact,  had  such  an  old-world  air,  that  by  very  rea- 
son of  its  antiquity  it  seemed  new.  The  sitting-room,  hung 
with  brocatelle  damask  curtains,  contained  a  collection  of 
"  duchesse "  chairs  and  whatnots;  and  from  the  wall  a 
superb  Popinot,  Mme.  Ragon's  father,  the  alderman  of  San- 
cerre,  painted  by  Latour,  smiled  down  upon  the  room  like  a 
parvenu  in  all  his  glory.  Mme.  Ragon  at  home  was  incom- 
plete without  her  tiny  King  Charles,  who  reposed  with  mar- 
velous effect  on  her  hard  little  rococo  sofa,  a  piece  of  furni- 
ture which  certainly  had  never  played  the  part  of  Crebillon's 
sofa. 


238  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

Among  the  Ragons'  many  virtues,  the  possession  of  old 
wines  arrived  at  perfect  maturity  was  by  no  means  the  least 
endearing;  to  say  nothing  of  certain  liqueurs  of  Mme. 
Anfoux's,  brought  from  the  West  Indies  by  the  lovely  Mme. 
Ragon's  admirers,  sufficiently  dogged  to  love  on  without 
hope  (so  it  was  said).  Wherefore  the  Ragons'  little  dinners 
were  highly  appreciated.  Jeannette,  the  old  cook,  served  the 
two  old  folk  with  a  blind  devotion  ;  for  them  she  would  have 
stolen  fruit  to  make  preserves  ;  and,  so  far  from  investing  her 
money  in  the  savings  bank,  she  prudently  put  it  in  the  lottery, 
hoping  one  day  to  carry  home  the  great  prize  to  her  master 
and  mistress.  In  spite  of  her  sixty  years,  Jeannette,  on 
Sundays  when  they  had  company,  superintended  the  dishes  in 
the  kitchen  and  waited  at  table  with  a  deft  quickness  which 
would  have  given  hints  to  Mile.  Contat  as  Suzanne  in  the 
"Marriage  of  Figaro." 

This  time  the  guests  were  ten  in  number — the  elder  Popinot, 
Uncle  Pillerault,  Anselme,  Cesar  and  his  wife  and  daughter, 
the  three  Matifats,  and  the  Abbe  Loraux.  Mme.  Matifat,  first 
introduced  arrayed  for  the  dance  in  her  turban,  now  wore  a 
gown  of  blue  velvet,  thick  cotton  stockings,  kid  slippers, 
green-fringed  chamois-leather  gloves,  and  a  hat  lined  with 
pink  and  adorned  with  blossoming  auriculas. 

Every  one  had  arrived  by  five  o'clock. '  The  Ragons  used 
to  beg  their  guests  to  be  punctual ;  and  when  the  good  folk 
themselves  were  asked  out  to  dinner,  their  friends  were  careful 
to  dine  at  the  same  hour,  for  at  the  age  of  seventy  the  diges- 
tion does  not  take  kindly  to  the  new-fangled  times  and  seasons 
ordained  by  fashionable  society. 

Cesarine  knew  that  Mme.  Ragon  would  seat  Anselme  beside 
her  ;  all  women,  even  devotees,  or  the  feeblest  feminine  in- 
tellects, understand  each  other  in  the  matter  of  a  love  affair. 
The  toilet  of  the  perfumer's  daughter  was  designed  to  turn 
young  Popinot's  head.  Constance,  who  had  given  up,  not 
without  a  pang,  the  idea  of  the  notary,  who  for  her  was  an 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  239 

heir-presumptive  to  a  throne,  had  helped  Cesarine  to  dress, 
certain  bitter  reflections  mingling  with  her  thoughts  the  while. 
Foreseeing  the  future,  she  lowered  the  modest  gauze  kerchief 
somewhat  on  Cesarine's  shoulders,  so  as  to  display  rather 
more  of  their  outline,  as  well  as  the  throat  on  which  the  young 
girl's  head  was  set  with  striking  grace.  The  Grecian  bodice, 
four  or  five  folds  crossing  from  left  to  right,  gave  short 
glimpses  of  delicately  rounded  contours  beneath ;  and  the 
leaden-gray  merino  gown,  with  its  flounces  trimmed  with 
green  ornaments,  clearly  defined  a  shape  which  had  never 
seemed  so  slender  and  so  lissome.  Gold  filigree  earrings  hung 
from  her  ears.  Her  hair,  dressed  high  in  Chinese  style,  was 
drawn  back  from  her  face,  so  that  the  delicate  freshness  of  its 
surface  and  the  dim  tracery  of  the  veins  which  suffused  the 
white  velvet  with  the  purest  glow  of  life  were  apparent  at  a 
glance.  Indeed,  Cesarine  was  so  coquettishly  lovely  that 
Mme.  Matifat  could  not  help  saying  so,  without  perceiving 
that  the  mother  and  daughter  had  felt  the  necessity  of  be- 
witching young  Popinot. 

Neither  Birotteau,  nor  his  wife,  nor  Mme.  Matifat,  nor  any 
one  else,  broke  in  upon  the  delicious  talk  between  the  two 
young  people  ;  love  glowed  within  them  as  they  spoke  with 
lowered  voices  in  the  draughty  window-seat,  where  the  cold 
made  a  miniature  northeaster.  Moreover,  the  conversation 
of  their  seniors  grew  animated  when  the  elder  Popinot  let 
something  drop  concerning  Roguin's  flight,  saying  that  this 
was  the  second  notary-defaulter,  and  that  hitherto  such  a 
thing  had  been  unknown.  Mme.  Ragon  had  touched  her 
brother's  foot  at  the  mention  of  Roguin,  Pillerault  had  spoken 
aloud  to  cover  the  judge's  remark,  and  both  looked  signifi- 
cantly from  him  to  Mme.  Birotteau. 

"  I  know  all,"  Constance  said,  and  in  her  gentle  voice  there 
was  a  note  of  pain. 

"  Oh,  well  then,"  said  Mme.  Matifat,  addressing  herself  to 
Birotteau,  who  humbly  bent  his  head,  "how  much  of  your 


240  C£SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

money  did  he  run  away  with  ?  To  listen  to  the  gossip,  you 
might  be  ruined." 

"  He  had  two  hundred  thousand  francs  of  mine.  As  for 
the  forty  thousand  which  he  pretended  to  borrow  for  me  from 
one  of  his  clients  whose  money  he  had  squandered,  we  are 
going  to  law  about  it." 

"You  will  see  that  settled  this  coming  week,"  said  the 
elder  Popinot.  "I  thought  that  you  would  not  mind  my 
explaining  your  position  to  the  president ;  he  has  ordered 
Roguin's  papers  to  be  brought  into  the  Council  Chamber ; 
on  examination  it  will  be  discovered  when  the  lender's  capital 
was  embezzled,  and  Derville's  allegations  can  be  proved  or 
disproved.  Derville  is  pleading  in  person,  to  save  expense 
to  you." 

"  Shall  we  gain  the  day?"  asked  Mme.  Birotteau. 

"I  do  not  know,"  Popinot  answered.  "Although  I  be- 
long to  the  Chamber  before  which  the  case  will  come,  I  shall 
refrain  from  deliberating  upon  it,  even  if  I  should  be  called 
upon  to  do  so." 

"But  can  there  be  any  doubt  about  such  a  straightforward 
case?"  asked  Pillerault.  "Ought  not  the  deed  to  state  that 
the  money  was  actually  paid  down,  and  must  not  the  notaries 
declare  that  they  have  seen  it  handed  over  ?  Roguin  would 
go  to  the  galleys  if  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  justice." 

"  In  my  opinion,"  the  judge  answered,  "  the  lender  should 
look  to  Roguin's  caution-money  and  the  amount  paid  for  the 
practice  for  his  remedy ;  but  sometimes,  in  still  simpler  cases 
than  this,  the  councilors  at  the  Court-Royal  have  been  divided 
six  against  six." 

"  What  is  this,  mademoiselle  ;  has  Monsieur  Roguin  run 
away?"  asked  Anselme,  overhearing  at  last  what  was  being 
said.  "  Monsieur  Cesar  said  nothing  about  it  to  me — to  me 
who  would  give  my  life  for  him " 

Cesarine  felt  that  the  whole  family  was  included  in  that 
"for  him  ;  "  for  if  the  girl's  inexperience  had  not  understood 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  241 

the  tone,  she  could  not  mistake  the  look  that  wrapped  her  in 
a  rosy  flame. 

"  I  was  sure  of  it ;  I  told  him  so,  but  he  hid  it  all  from 
mother,  and  told  his  secret  to  no  one  but  me." 

"  You  spoke  to  him  of  me  in  this  matter,"  said  Anselme; 
"  you  read  my  heart,  but  do  you  read  all  that  is  there  ?  " 

"  Perhaps." 
-  "  Oh  !  I  am  very  happy,"  said  Anselme.  "  If  you  will  re- 
move all  my  fears,  in  a  year's  time  I  shall  be  so  rich  that  your 
father  will  not  receive  me  so  badly  when  I  shall  speak  to  him 
then  of  our  marriage.  Five  hours  of  sleep  shall  be  enough 
for  me  now  of  a  night " 

"Do  not  make  yourself  ill,"  said  Cesarine,  and  no  words 
can  reproduce  the  tones  of  her  voice  as  she  gave  Anselme  a 
glance  wherein  all  her  thoughts  might  be  read.  . 

"Wife,"  said  Cesar,  as  they  rose  from  table,  "I  think 
those  young  people  are  in  love." 

"Oh,  well,  so  much  the  better,"  said  Constance  gravely; 
"  my  daughter  will  be  the  wife  of  a  man  who  has  a  head  on 
his  shoulders  and  plenty  of  energy.  Brains  are  the  best  en- 
dowment in  a  marriage." 

She  hurried  away  into  Mme.  Ragon's  room.  During  dinner, 
Cesar  had  let  fall  several  remarks  which  had  drawn  a  smile 
from  Pillerault  and  the  judge,  so  plainly  did  they  exhibit  the 
speaker's  ignorance;  and  it  was  borne  in  upon  the  unfortunate 
woman  how  little  fitted  her  husband  was  to  struggle  with  mis- 
fortune.    Constance's    heart   was   heavv  with   unshed    tears. 

J 

Instinctively  she  mistrusted  du  Tillet,  for  all  mothers  under- 
stand timeo  Danaos  et  dona  ferentes  without  learning  Latin. 
She  wept,  and  her  daughter  and  Mme.  Ragon,  with  their 
arms  about  her,  could  not  learn  the  cause  of  her  trouble. 

"It  is  the  nerves,"  she  said. 

The  rest  of  the  evening  was  spent  over  the  card-table  by 
the  old  people,  and  the  younger  ones  played  the  blithe  child- 
ish games  styled  "  innocent  amusements,"  because  they  cover 
16 


242  C&SAR  B1R0TTEAU. 


the    innocent    mischief    of   bourgeois   lovers.     The    Matifats 
joined  the  young  people. 

"Cesar,"  said  Constance,  as  they  went  home  again,  "go 
to  Monsieur  le  Baron  de  Nucingen  some  time  about  the  8th, 
so  as  to  be  sure  some  days  beforehand  that  you  can  meet  your 
engagements  on  the  15th.  If  there  should  be  any  hitch  in 
your  arrangements,  would  you  raise  a  loan  one  day  to  pay 
your  debts  between  one  day  and  the  next?  " 

"I  will  go,  wife,"  Cesar  answered,  and  he  grasped  her 
hand  and  Cesarine's  in  his  as  he  added,  "  My  darlings,  I  have 
given  you  bitter  New  Year's  gifts  !  "  And  in  the  darkness 
inside  the  cab  the  two  women,  who  could  not  see  the  poor 
perfumer,  felt  hot  tears  falling  on  their  hands. 

"  Hope,  dear,"  said  Constance. 

"Everything  will  go  well,  papa;  Monsieur  Popinot  told 
me  that  he  would  give  his  life  for  you." 

"Forme — and  for  my  family;  that  is  it,  is  it  not?"  an- 
swered Cesar,  trying  to  speak  gaily. 

Cesarine  pressed  her  father's  hand  in  a  way  which  told  him 
that  Anselme  was  her  betrothed. 

Two  hundred  cards  arrived  for  Birotteau  on  New  Year's 
Day  and  the  two  following  days.  This  influx  of  tokens  of 
favor  and  of  false  friendship  is  a  painful  thing  for  people  who 
are  being  swept  away  by  the  current  of  misfortune.  Three 
times  Cesar  presented  himself  at  the  Baron  de  Nucingen's 
hotel,  and  each  time  in  vain.  The  New  Year's  festivities 
sufficiently  excused  the  banker's  absence.  But  on  the  last 
visit  Birotteau  went  as  far  as  the  banker's  private  office  and 
learned  from  a  German,  the  head  clerk,  that  M.  de  Nucingen 
had  only  returned  from  a  ball  given  by  the  Kellers  at  five 
o'clock  that  morning,  and  that  he  would  not  be  visible  until 
half-past  nine.  Birotteau  chatted  with  this  man  for  nearly 
half  an  hour,  and  contrived  to  interest  the  German  in  his 
affairs.  So,  during  the  day,  this  cabinet  minister  of  the 
house  of  Nucingen  wrote  to  tell  Cesar  that  the  Baron  would 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  243 

see  him  at  twelve  o'clock  the  following  morning,  January  the 
third.  Although  every  hour  brought  its  drop  of  bitterness,  that 
day  went  by  with  dreadful  swiftness.  The  perfumer  took  a 
cab  and  drove  to  the  hotel ;  the  courtyard  was  already  blocked 
with  carriages,  and  the  poor  honest  man's  heart  was  oppressed 
by  the  splendors  of  that  celebrated  house. 

"Yet  he  has  failed  twice,"  he  said  to  himself,  as  he  went 
up  the  handsome  staircase,  with  flowers  on  either  side,  and 
through  the  luxuriously  furnished  rooms  by  which  the  Bar- 
oness, Delphine  de  Nucingen,  had  made  a  name  for  herself. 
The  Baroness  strove  to  rival  the  most  splendid  houses  in  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Germain — the  houses  of  a  circle  into  which 
as  yet  she  had  no  right  of  entry. 

The  Baron  and  his  wife  were  at  breakfast.  In  spite  of  the 
number  of  those  who  were  waiting  in  his  offices  for  him,  he 
said  that  he  would  see  du  Tillet's  friends  at  any  hour. 
Birotteau  trembled  with  hope  at  the  change  which  the 
Baron's  message  produced  on  the  contemptuous  lackey's  in- 
solent face. 

"Bardon  me,  my  tear,"  said  the  Baron,  addressing  his 
wife,  as  he  rose  to  his  feet  and  bowed  slightly  to  Birotteau, 
"dees  shentleman  ees  ein  goot  Royaleest  and  de  indimate 
frient  of  du  Tillet.  Meinnesir  Pirodot  is  teputy-mayor  of  de 
second  arrontussement,  and  gifs  palls  of  Asiatic  magnifi- 
cence ;  you  vill  make,  no  doubt,  his  agquaintance  mit 
Measure." 

"  I  should  be  delighted  to  take  lessons  of  Madame  Birotteau, 

for  Ferdinand "     ("  Come,"  thought  the  perfumer,  "she 

calls  him  Ferdinand,  plump  and  plain.")  "  Ferdinand  spoke 
of  the  ball  to  us  with  an  admiration  which  says  the  more, 
because  Ferdinand  is  very  critical  ;  everything  must  have 
been  perfect.  Shall  you  soon  give  another  ?  "  asked  Mme. 
de  Nucingen,  with  a  most  amiable  expression. 

"Madame,  poor  folk  like  us  seldom  amuse  ourselves,"  an- 
swered   the    perfumer,  doubtful    whether    the    Baroness   was 


244  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

laughing  at  him,  or  if  her  words  were  simply  an  empty  com- 
pliment. 

"  Meinnesir  Crintod  suberindended  de  alderations  in  your 
house,"  said  the  Baron. 

"  Oh  !  Grindot !  is  he  that  nice  young  architect  who  has 
just  come  back  from  Rome?  "  asked  Delphine  de  Nucingen. 
"I  am  quite  wild  about  him;  he  is  making  lovely  sketches 
for  my  album. ' ' 

No  conspirator  in  the  hands  of  the  executioner  in  the 
torture  chamber  of  the  Venetian  Republic  could  have  felt 
less  at  his  ease  in  the  boots*  than  Birotteau  in  his  ordinary 
clothes  at  that  moment.  Every  word  had  for  him  an  ironical 
sound. 

"Ve  too  gif  liddle  palls  here,"  the  Baron  continued, 
giving  the  visitor  a  searching  glance.  "  Eferypody  does  it, 
you  see  !  ' ' 

"Will  Monsieur  Birotteau  join  us  at  breakfast?"  asked 
Delphine,  and  indicated  the  luxuriously  furnished  table. 

"  I  am  here  on  business,  Madame  la  Baronne,  and " 

"  Yes  !  "  said  the  Baron.  "  Matame,  vill  you  bermit  us  to 
talk  pizness  ?  " 

Delphine  made  a  little  gesture  of  assent.  "Are  you  about 
to  buy  some  perfumery?"  she  asked  of  the  Baron,  who 
shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  turned  in  despair  to  Cesar. 

"  Du  Dillet  take  de  greatest  inderest  in  you,"  said  he. 

"At  last  we  are  coming  to  the  point,"  thought  the  hapless 
merchant. 

"  Mit  his  ledder,  your  gretid  mit  my  house  is  only  limited 
py  de  pounds  of  my  own  fortune." 

The  life-giving  draught  which  the  angel  bore  to  Hagar  in 
the  wilderness  must  surely  have  been  like  the  dew  which  these 
outlandish  words  effused  through  Birotteau's  veins.  The  cun- 
ning Baron  clung  of  set  purpose  to  the  horrible  accent  of  the 
German  Jew,  who  flatters   himself   that  he  has  mastered  an 

*  An  instrument  of  torture  in  which  the  legs  were  crushed, 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU. 

alien  tongue ;  for  this  system  led  to  misapprehensions  highly- 
useful  to  him  in  the  way  of  business. 

"And  you  shall  have  ein  gurrent  aggount,  dat  is  how  we 
vill  do  it,"  remarked  the  good,  the  great,  and  venerable 
financier,  with  Alsatian  geniality. 

Birotteau's  doubts  were  all  laid  to  rest ;  he  had  had  experi- 
ence of  business,  and  he  knew  that  a  man  never  goes  into 
details  unless  he  is  disposed  to  oblige  you  and  to  carry  out  a 
plan. 

"I  neet  not  say  to  you  that  the  pank  demands  dree  zigna- 
tures  off  eferypody,  gif  de  amount  is  large  or  small.  So  you 
shall  make  all  your  pills  to  de  order  off  our  friend  du  Dillet, 
who  vill  send  dem  de  same  day  to  de  pank  mit  my  zignature, 
and  py  four  o'glock  you  shall  have  de  amount  of  de  pills  dat  you 
haf  accept  in  de  morning,  and  at  pank  rate.  I  do  not  vant  gom- 
mission  nor  discount — nor  nossing  ;  for  I  shall  haf  de  bleasure 

of  peing  agreeable  to  you But  I  make  one  gondition  !  " 

he  added,  touching  his  nose  with  the  forefinger  of  his  left 
hand  and  putting  an  indescribable  cunning  into  the  gesture. 

"It  is  granted  before  you  ask  it,  Monsieur  le  Baron,"  said 
Birotteau,  imagining  that  the  banker  meant  to  stipulate  for  a 
share  in  the  profits. 

"Ein  gondition  to  vich  I  addach  de  greatest  price,  because 
I  should  like  Montame  de  Nichinguenne  to  take,  as  she  has 
said,  some  lessons  of  Montame  Pirodot." 

"  Monsieur  le  Baron,  do  not  laugh  at  me,  I  beg." 

"  Meinnesir  Pirodot,"  said  the  financier  seriously,  "it  is 
an  agreement ;  you  are  to  infite  us  to  your  next  pall.  My 
wife  is  chealous ;  she  would  like  to  see  your  house,  of  vich 
eferypody  says  such  great  dings." 

"  Monsieur  le  Baron  !  " 

"Oh!  if  you  refuse  me,  no  loan  aggount!  You  are  in 
great  favor.  Yes  !  I  know  dat  de  brefect  of  de  Seine  was 
go  to  you." 

"  Monsieur  le  Baron  !  " 


246  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"You  had  La  Pillartiere,  ein  shentleman-in-ordinary  to  de 
King;  and  de  goot  Fenteheine,  for  you  were  wounded — at 
Sainte " 

"On  the  13th  of  Vendemiaire,  Monsieur  le  Baron." 

"You  had  Meinnesir  de  Lassebette,  Meinnesir  Fauqueleine 
of  de  Agademie " 

"  Monsieur  le  Baron  !  " 

"  Eh  !  der  teufel,  do  not  be  so  modest,  Meester  Teputy- 
Mayor;  I  haf  heard  dat  de  King  said  dat  your  pall " 

"The  King?"  asked  Birotteau,  destined  to  learn  no  more, 
for  at  this  moment  a  young  man  came  into  the  room  ;  the 
sound  of  his  footsteps,  heard  at  a  distance,  had  brought  a 
bright  color  into  Delphine  de  Nucingen's  fair  and  beautiful 
face. 

"  Goot-tay,  my  tear  de  Marsay,"  said  the  Baron.  "Take 
my  blace ;  dere  are  a  lot  of  beoples  in  my  office,  dey  say. 
Who  knows  why?  De  mines  off  Wortschinne  are  baying  two 
hunderd  ber  cent.  !  Yes.  I  have  receifed  de  aggounts.  You 
haf  a  hunderd  tousand  francs  more  of  ingom  dis  year,  Mon- 
tame  de  Nichinguenne ;  you  could  buy  girdles  and  kew-kaws 
to  make  yourself  pretty,  as  if  you  neeted  dem  !  " 

"Good  heavens!"  exclaimed  Birotteau.  "The  Ragoni 
have  sold  their  shares  !  " 

"  Who  may  these  gentlemen  be?"  asked  the  young  dandy 
with  a  smile. 

"  Dere  !  "  said  Nucingen,  who  had  gone  as  far  as  the  door 

already,  "  it  looks  to  me  as  if  dose  bersons Te  Marsay, 

dis  is  Meinnesir  Pirodot,  your  berfumer,  who  gifs  palls  mit 
Asiatic  magnificence,  and  has  been  degoraded  py  de  King 
and "  l 

De  Marsay,  taking  up  his  eyeglass,  remarked,  "Ah  !  to  be 
sure.  I  thought  that  the  face  was  familiar.  Then  are  you 
about  to  perfume  your  affairs  with  some  efficacious  oil,  to  make 
them  run  smoothly  ?  " 

"  Ach  !  veil,  dose  Rakkons  had  an  aggount  mit  me,"  the 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  247 

Baron  went  on.  "I  put  dem  in  de  vay  of  ein  fortune,  and 
dey  could  not  vait  one  more  day  for  it." 

"Monsieur  le  Baron  !  "  cried  Birotteau. 

The  worthy  perfumer  found  himself  very  much  in  the  dark 
about  his  affairs,  and  fled  after  the  banker  without  taking 
leave  of  the  Baroness  or  of  de  Marsay.  M.  de  Nucingen  was 
on  the  lowest  step  of  the  stairs,  but  even  as  he  reached  the 
door  of  his  office,  Birotteau  was  beside  him.  As  he  turned 
the  handle  he  saw  the  despairing  gesture  of  the  poor  creature, 
for  whom  the  gulf  was  yawning,  and  said — 

"Eh!  it  is  understood,  is  it  not?  See  du  Dillet,  and 
arranche  it  all  mit  him." 

It  occurred  to  Birotteau  that  de  Marsay  might  have  some 
influence  with  the  Baron ;  he  darted  upstairs  with  the  speed 
of  a  swallow,  and  slipped  into  the  dining-room  where,  by 
rights,  the  Baroness  and  de  Marsay  should  have  been,  for  he 
had  left  Delphine  waiting  for  her  coffee  and  cream.  The 
coffee  indeed  was  now  waiting,  but  the  Baroness  and  the  young 
dandy  had  vanished  ;  the  servant  looked  amused  at  Birotteau's 
astonishment,  and  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  go  more 
leisurely  downstairs  again.  From  the  Nucingens'  hotel,  he 
went  at  once  to  du  Tillet,  only  to  hear  that  he  was  at  Mme. 
Roguin's  house  in  the  country.  He  took  a  cab,  and  paid  an 
extra  fare  to  be  driven  to  Nogent-sur-Marne  as  quickly  as  if  he 
had  traveled  post.  But  at  Nogent-sur-Marne  the  porter  told 
him  that  Monsieur  and  Madame  had  set  out  for  Paris,  and 
Birotteau  returned  quite  tired  out. 

When  he  told  his  wife  and  daughter  the  story  of  his  excur- 
sion, he  was  amazed  to  receive  the  sweetest  consolation  and 
assurances  that  all  would  go  well  from  Constance,  who  had 
always  taken  all  the  little  ups  and  downs  of  business  as  occa- 
sions on  which  to  utter  her  boding  cries. 

At  seven  o'clock  the  next  morning,  Birotteau  took  up  his 
position  before  du  Tillet'sdoor  in  the  dim  light.  He  begged 
the  porter  to  put  him  into  communication  with  du  Tillet's 

i 


248  CESAR  BIROTTEAU: 

man,  and,  by  dint  of  slipping  ten  francs  into  the  porter's 
hands,  obtained  the  favor  of  an  interview  with  du  Tillet's 
man ;  of  him  he  asked  to  give  him  an  interview  with  du  Til- 
let  as  soon  as  du  Tillet  should  be  visible,  and  to  that  end  a 
couple  of  gold-pieces  found  their  way  into  the  possession  of 
du  Tillet's  men.     By  way  of  these  little  sacrifices  and  great 
humiliations,  common  to  courtiers  and  petitioners,  he  attained 
his  end.     At  half-past  eight,  when  his  ex-assistant  had  slipped 
on  a  dressing-gown  and  shaken  off  the  confused  ideas  of  a 
man  awakened   from  sleep,  had   yawned,  stretched  himself, 
and  asked  pardon  of  his  old  master,  Birotteau  found  himself 
face  to  face  with  the  tiger  thirsting  for   revenge,  the   man 
whom  he  was  fain  to  consider  as  his  one  friend  in  the  world. 
"  Do  not  mind  me,"  said  Birotteau,  replying  to  the  apology. 
"What  do  you  want,  my  good  Cesar?''''  asked  du  Tillet; 
and  C6sar,  not  without  terrible  palpitations,  gave  the  Baron 
de  Nucingen's  answer  and  demands  to  an  inattentive  listener, 
who  looked  about  for  the  bellows,  and  scolded  his  manservant 
for  taking  so  long  over  lighting  the  fire. 

Cesar  did  not  notice  at  first  that,  if  the  master  was  not 
heedful,  the  man  was  interested  ;  but  seeing  this  at  last  he 
grew  confused  and  broke  off,  to  begin  again,  spurred  on  by  a 
"  Go  on,  go  on  ;  I  am  listening,"  from  the  abstracted  banker. 
The  good  man's  shirt  was  soaked  with  perspiration,  which 
turned  icy  cold  when  du  Tillet  looked  full  and  steadily  at 
him,  and  he  could  see  those  eyes  of  silver  streaked  with  a  few 
gold  threads ;  there  was  a  diabolical  light  in  them  which 
pierced  him  to  the  heart. 

"  My  dear  master,  the  bank  refused  your  paper,  passed  on 
to  Gigonnet  without  guarantee  by  the  firm  of  Claparon  ;  is 
that  my  fault  ?  What !  you  have  been  a  judge  at  the  Con- 
sular Tribunal,  how  could  you  make  such  blunders?  I  am, 
before  all  things,  a  banker.  I  will  give  you  my  money,  but  I 
could  not  expose  my  signature  to  a  refusal  from  the  bank.  I 
Jive  by  credit.     So  do  we  all.     Do  you  want  money? " 


CESAR  BIROTTEAUl  249 

"  Can  you  let  me  have  all  that  I  need  in  cash  ?  " 
"  That  depends  upon  the  amount  to  be  paid.     How  much 
do  you  want  ?  " 

"  Thirty  thousand  francs." 

"Plenty  of  chimney-pots  tumbling  about  my  ears!"  ex- 
claimed du  Tillet,  and  he  burst  into  a  laugh. 

The  perfumer,  misled  by  the  splendor  of  du  Tillet's  sur- 
roundings, chose  to  regard  that  laugh  as  a  sign  that  the  sum 
was  a  mere  trifle.  He  breathed  again.  Du  Tillet  rang  the 
bell. 

"  Tell  the  cashier  to  come  up." 
"  He  is  not  here  yet,  sir,"  the  servant  answered. 
"Those  rogues  are  laughing  at  me!     It  is  half-past  eight; 
they  ought  to  have  done  a  million   francs'  worth  of  business 
by  now." 

Five  minutes  later  M.  Legras  came  upstairs. 
"  How  much  have  we  in  the  safe  ?  " 

"  Only  twenty  thousand  francs.  Your  orders  were  to  buy 
thirty  thousand  livres  per  annum  in  rentes,  at  present  price, 
payable  on  the  15th." 

"  That  is  right ;  I  am  still  asleep." 
The  cashier  gave  Birotteau  a  sly  glance,  and  went. 
"If  truth  were  banished  from   the  earth   she  would    leave 
her  last  word  with  a  cashier,"  said  du  Tillet.      "  But  have  you 
-not  an  interest  in  little  Popinot's  business,  now  that  he  has  just 
set   up   for   himself?"    he  added,  after    a   horrible    pause  in 
which  the  sweat  gathered  in  drops  on  Birotteau's  forehead. 

"Yes,"  said  Cesar  innocently.  "Do  you  think  you  could 
discount  his  signature  for  a  fair  amount?  " 

"Bring  me  fifty  thousand  francs'  worth  of  his  acceptances, 
and  I  will  get  them  negotiated  for  you  at  a  reasonable  rate  by 
one  Gobseck  ;  very  easy  to  do  business  with  when  he  has  plenty 
of  uncalled-for  capital  on  his  hands,  and  he  has  a  good  deal 
just  now." 

Birotteau  went  home  again  heartbroken.     He  did  not  see 


250  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

that  bankers  and  bill-discounters  were  sending  him  backward 
and  forward  in  a  game  of  battledore  and  shuttlecock  ;  but 
Constance  guessed  even  then  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
obtain  a  loan  of  any  sort.  If  three  bankers  had  already  re- 
fused credit  to  a  man  so  well  known  as  the  deputy-mayor 
every  one  would  hear  of  it,  and  the  Bank  of  France  was  no 
longer  to  be  thought  of. 

"Try  to  renew"  (this  was  Constance's  advice).  "Go  to 
your  co-associate,  Monsieur  Claparon,  to  every  one,  in  fact, 
whose  bills  fall  due  on  the  15th,  and  ask  them  to  renew. 
There  will  be  time  enough  then  to  go  to  bill-discounters  with 
Popinot's  bills." 

"  To-morrow  will  be  the  13th  !  "  exclaimed  Birotteau,  worn 
out  with  anxiety. 

He  was  "  endowed  with  a  sanguine  temperament,"  to  quote 
his  own  prospectus ;  a  temperament  upon  which  the  wear 
and  tear  of  emotion  and  of  thought  tell  so  enormously  that 
sleep  is  imperatively  needed  to  repair  the  waste.  Cesarine 
brought  her  father  into  the  drawing-room,  and  played  "  Rous- 
seau's Djeam,"  that  charming  composition  of  Herold's,  while 
Constance  sat  sewing  by  her  husband's  side.  The  poor  man 
lay  back  on  the  ottoman  couch.  Every  time  his  eyes  rested 
on  his  wife  he  saw  a  sweet  smile  on  her  lips,  and  so  he  fell 
asleep. 

"  Poor  man  !  "  said  Constance.  "  What  torture  is  in  store 
for  him  !     If  only  he  can  endure  it  !  " 

"Oh,  mamma,  what  is  it?"  asked  Cesarine,  seeing  her 
mother  in  tears. 

"  I  see  bankruptcy  ahead,  darling.  If  your  father  is  obliged 
to  file  his  schedule  there  must  be  no  asking  for  pity  of  any 
one.  You  must  be  prepared  to  be  an  ordinary  store-girl,  my 
dear.  If  I  see  you  doing  your  part  bravely,  I  shall  have 
strength  to  begin  life  again.  I  know  your  father;  he  will 
not  keep  back  one  centime  ;  I  shall  give  up  my  claims,  all 
that  we  have  will  be  sold.     Take  your  clothes  and  trinkets 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  251 

to-morrow  to  Uncle  Pillerault ;  you  are  not  bound  to  lose 
anything,  my  child." 

At  these  words,  spoken  with  such  devout  sincerity,  Cesar- 
ine's  terror  knew  no  bounds.  She  thought  of  going  to  An- 
selme,  but  a  feeling  of  delicacy  withheld  her. 

The  next  morning  found  Birotteau  in  the  Rue  de  Provence 
at  nine  o'clock.  He  had  fallen  a  victim  to  fresh  anxieties  of 
a  totally  different  kind.  To  borrow  money  is  not  necessarily  a 
complicated  process  in  business  ;  it  is  a  matter  of  daily  oc- 
currence, for  capital  must  always  be  found  wherever  a  new 
enterprise  is  started  ;  but  to  ask  a  man  to  renew  a  bill  is  in 
commercial  circles  what  the  police  court  is  to  the  court  of 
assize ;  it  is  a  first  step  to  bankruptcy,  even  as  a  misde- 
meanor is  half-way  to  a  crime.  The  secret  of  your  weakness 
and  your  embarrassment  passes  out  of  your  own  keeping.  A 
merchant  delivers  himself  up,  bound  hand  and  foot,  to  another 
merchant,  and  charity  is  not  a  virtue  much  practiced  on  the 
Stock  Exchange. 

The  perfumer,  who  hitherto  had  walked  the  streets  of  Paris 
with  bright  confident  eyes,  now  cast  down  by  doubts,  hesi- 
tated to  go  to  Claparon  ;  he  was  beginning  to  understand 
that  with  bankers  the  heart  is  merely  a  portion  of  the  internal 
economy.  Claparon  had  seemed  to  him  so  brutal  in  his  coarse 
hilarity,  and  he  had  felt  so  much  vulgarity  in  the  man,  that 
he  shrank  from  approaching  this  creditor. 

"  He  is  nearer  the  people,  perhaps  he  will  have  more  soul !  " 
This  was  the  first  word  of  accusation  which  the  anguish  of  his 
position  wrung  from  him. 

Cesar  glanced  up  at  the  windows  and  at  the  green  curtains 
yellowed  by  the  sun  ;  then  he  drew  the  last  of  his  stock  of 
courage  up  from  the  depths  of  his  soul,  and  climbed  the  stairs 
that  led  to  a  shabby  mezzanine  floor.  He  read  the  word 
"Office,"  engraven  in  black  letters  on  an  oval  brass-plate 
upon  the  door,  and  knocked.     No  one  answered,  so  he  went  in. 

The  whole  place  was  something  more  than  humble ;  it  sav- 


252  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

ored  of  dire  poverty,  avarice,  or  neglect.  No  clerk  showed 
his  face  behind  the  barrier  of  unpainted  pine,  surmounted  at 
elbow-height  by  a  brass-wire  lattice,  an  arrangement  which 
screened  off  an  inner  space  occupied  by  tables  and  desks  of 
blackened  wood.  Scattered  about  the  deserted  offices  lay 
inkstands  in  which  mold  was  growing,  quill-pens  touzled 
like  a  street  urchin's  head,  twisted  up  into  suns  with  rays ; 
the  rooms  were  littered  with  cardboard  cases,  papers,  and  cir- 
culars, useless  no  doubt.  The  floor  of  the  lobby  was  as  worn, 
as  damp  and  gritty  as  the  floor  of  a  lodging-house  parlor. 
Through  a  door  on  which  the  word  "Counting-room"  was 
inscribed,  the  visitor  entered  a  second  room,  where  every- 
thing was  in  keeping  with  the  sinister  waggery  displayed  in 
the  first.  In  one  corner  stood  a  large  cage  of  oak  with  a  grill 
of  copper-wire,  and  a  cashier's  sliding  window.  An  enor- 
mous iron  letter-box  had  doubtless  been  abandoned  to  the  rats 
for  a  playground.  The  open  door  of  this  cage  gave  a  view 
of  yet  another  of  these  whimsical  offices,  and  of  a  shabby  and 
worm-eaten  green  chair,  a  mass  of  horsehair  escaping  through 
a  hole  underneath  this  piece  of  furniture  in  countless  cork- 
screw curls  that  called  its  owner's  wig  in  mind.  Evidently 
this  room  had  been  the  drawing-room  of  the  house  before  it 
had  been  converted  into  offices,  but  the  only  attempt  at  orna- 
mental furniture  was  a  round  table  covered  with  a  green  cloth, 
and  some  old  chairs  covered  with  black  leather  and  adorned 
with  gilt  nail-heads  which  stood  about  it.  The  mantel  had 
some  pretensions  to  elegance,  the  hearthstone  was  unblack- 
ened,  and  there  were  no  visible  signs  that  a  fire  had  been 
lighted  there.  The  pier-glass  above  it,  tarnished  with  fly- 
spots,  had  a  mean  look  ;  so  had  a  mahogany  clock-case  bought 
at  the  sale  of  some  departed  notary's  office  furniture,  a  dreary 
object  which,  enhanced  the  depressing  effect  of  the  pair  of 
empty  candlesticks  and  the  all-pervading  sticky  grime.  The 
dinginess  of  the  paper  on  the  walls,  drab  with  a  rose-colored 
border,  spoke  plainly  of  the  habitual  presence  of  smokers  and 


Cesar  birotteaQ:  253 

absence  of  ventilation.  The  whole  stale-looking  room  re- 
sembled nothing  so  much  as  a  newspaper  editor's  office. 
Birotteau,  afraid  of  intruding  on  the  banker's  privacy,  gave 
three  sharp  taps  on  the  door  opposite  the  one  by  which  he 
had  entered. 

"  Come  in  !  "  cried  Claparon,  and  the  sound  of  his  voice 
evidently  came  from  a  room  beyond.  The  perfumer  could 
hear  a  good  fire  crackling  on  the  hearth,  but  the  banker  was 
not  there.  This  apartment  did  duty,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  for 
a  private  office.  Francois  Keller's  elegantly  furnished  sanc- 
tum differed  from  the  grotesque  neglect  of  this  sham  capi- 
talist's surroundings  as  widely  as  Versailles  differs  from  the 
wigwam  of  a  Huron  chief;  and  Birotteau,  who  had  beheld 
the  glories  of  the  banking  world,  was  about  to  be  introduced 
to  its  blackguardism. 

In  a  sort  of  oblong  den,  contrived  behind  the  private  office, 
where  the  whole  of  the  furniture,  scarcely  elegant  in  its  prime, 
had  been  battered,  broken,  covered  with  grease,  slit  to  rags, 
soiled  and  spoiled  by  the  slovenly  habits  of  the  occupier, 
reclined  Claparon,  who,  at  sight  of  Birotteau,  flung  on  a  filthy 
dressing-gown,  laid  down  his  pipe,  and  drew  the  bed-curtains 
with  a  haste  that  seemed  suspicious  even  to  the  innocent 
perfumer. 

"Take  a  seat,  sir,"  said  du  Tillet's  banker  puppet. 

Claparon  without  his  wig,  his  head  tied  up  in  a  bandanna 
handkerchief  all  awry,  was  to  Birotteau's  thinking  the  more 
repulsive  in  that  his  loose  dressing-gown  gave  glimpses  of  a 
nondescript  knitted  woolen  garment,  once  white,  but  now  a 
dingy  brown,  from  indefinitely  prolonged  wear. 

"Will  you  breakfast  with  me?"  asked  Claparon,  bethink- 
ing himself  of  the  ball,  and  prompted  partly  by  a  wish  to  turn 
the  tables  on  his  host,  partly  by  anxiety  to  put  Birotteau  off 
the  scent.  And,  in  point  of  fact,  a  round  table,  hastily  cleared 
of  papers,  was  suspiciously  suggestive  ;  for  it  displayed  a  p£t6, 
oysters,  white  wine,  and  a  dish  of  vulgar  kidneys,  sautes  au  vin 


254  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

de  Champagne,  cooling  in  their  gravy,  while  an  omelette  with 
truffles  was  browning  before  the  sea-coal  fire.  The  table  was 
set  for  two  persons  \  two  table-napkins,  soiled  at  supper  on 
the  previous  evening,  would  have  enlightened  the  purest  inno- 
cence. Claparon,  in  the  character  of  a  man  who  has  a  belief 
in  his  own  adroitness,  insisted  in  spite  of  Birotteau's  polite 
refusals. 

"  I  should  by  rights  have  had  somebody  to  breakfast,  but 
that  somebody  has  not  kept  the  appointment,"  cried  the  cun- 
ning commercial  traveler,  speaking  loud,  so  that  the  words 
might  reach  the  ears  of  an  auditor  hiding  under  the  blankets. 

"I  have  come  on  business  pure  and  simple,  sir,"  said 
Birotteau,  "and  I  shall  not  detain  you  long." 

"I  am  overwhelmed  with  business,"  returned  Claparon, 
pointing  to  a  cylinder-desk  and  to  the  tables,  which  were  heaped 
up  with  papers ;  "  not  a  poor  little  minute  may  I  have  to  my- 
self. I  never  see  people  except  on  Saturdays  ;  but  for  you,  my 
dear  sir,  I  am  always  at  home.  I  have  no  time  left  nowadays 
for  love  affairs  or  lounging  about ;  I  am  losing  the  business  in- 
stinct, which  takes  intervals  of  carefully  timed  idleness,  if  it 
is  to  keep  its  freshness.  Nobody  sees  me  busy  doing  nothing 
in  the  boulevards.  Pshaw  !  business  bores  me,  I  don't  care 
to  hear  any  more  about  business  at  present ;  I  have  money 
enough,  and  I  shall  never  have  pleasure  enough.  My  word, 
I  have  a  mind  to  turn  tourist  and  see  Italy.  Ah  !  beloved 
Italy  !  fair  even  amid  her  adversity,  adorable  land,  where, 
doubtless,  I  shall  find  some  magnificent,  indolent  Italian 
beauty;  I  have  always  admired  Italian  women!  Have  you 
ever  had  an  Italian  mistress?  No?  Oh,  well,  come  to  Italy 
with  me.  We  will  see  Venice,  the  city  of  the  Doges,  fallen, 
more's  the  pity,  into  the  hands  of  those  Philistines  the  Aus- 
trians,  who  know  nothing  of  art.  Pooh  !  let  us  leave  business, 
and  canals,  and  loans,  and  governments  in  peace.  I  am  a 
prince  when  my  pockets  are  well  lined.  Let  us  travel,  by 
Jove!" 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  255 

"Just  one  word,  sir,  and  I  will  go,"  said  Birotteau.  "You 
passed  my  bills  on  to  Monsieur  Bidault." 

"  Gigonnet,  you  mean  ;  nice  little  fellow,  Gigonnet ;  a  man 
as  easy-going  as  a — as  a  slip-knot." 

"  Yes,"  said  Cesar.  "  I  should  be  glad — and  in  this  mat- 
ter I  am  relying  on  your  integrity  and  honor" — (Claparon 
bowed) — "  I  should  be  glad  if  I  could  renew " 

"Impossible,"  said  the  banker  roundly — "impossible.  I 
am  not  the  only  man  in  the  affair.  We  are  all  in  council, 
'tis  a  regular  Chamber;  but  that  we  are  all  on  good  terms 
among  ourselves,  like  rashers  in  a  pan.  Oh,  we  deliberate, 
that  we  do  !  The  building  land  by  the  Madeleine  is  nothing; 
we  are  doing  other  things  elsewhere.  Eh  !  my  good  sir,  if 
we  were  not  busy  in  the  Champs-Elysees,  near  the  new  Ex- 
change which  has  just  been  finished,  in  the  Quartier  Saint- 
Lazare  and  about  the  Tivoli,  we  should  not  be  vinanciers,  as 
old  Nucingen  says.  So  what  is  the  Madeleine  ?  A  little 
speck  of  a  business.  Prrr  !  we  do  not  dabble,  my  good  sir," 
he  said,  tapping  Birotteau's  chest,  and  giving  him  a  hug. 
"There,  come  and  have  your  breakfast,  and  we  will  have  a 
talk,"  Claparon  continued,  by  way  of  softening  his  refusal. 

"  By  all  means,"  said  Birotteau.  "  So  much  the  worse  for 
the  other,"  thought  he.  He  would  wait  till  the  wine  went  to 
Claparon's  head,  and  find  out  then  who  his  partners  really 
w^re  in  this  affair,  which  began  to  have  a  very  shady  look. 

"That  is  right!  Victoire  !  "  shouted  the  banker,  and  at 
*he  call  appeared  a  genuine  Leonarda,  tricked  out  like  a  fish- 
wife. 

"Tell  the  clerks  that  I  cannot  see  anybody,  not  even 
Nucingen,  Keller,  Gigonnet,  and  the  rest  of  them  !  " 

"  There  is  no  one  here  but  Monsieur  Lempereur." 

"He  can  receive  the  fashionables,"  said  Claparon,  "and 
the  small  fry  need  not  go  beyond  the  public  office.  They 
can  be  told  that  I  am  meditating  how  to  get  a  pull — at  a 
bottle  of  champagne." 


266  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

To  make  an  old  commercial  traveler  tipsy  is  to  achieve  the 
impossible.  Cesar  had  mistaken  his  boon  companion's  symp- 
toms, and  thought  his  boisterous  vulgarity  was  due  to  intoxi- 
cation, when  he  tried  to  shrive  him. 

"  There  is  that  rascal  Roguin  still  in  it  with  you,"  said 
Birotteau;  "  ought  you  not  to  write  and  tell  him  to  help  out 
a  friend  whom  he  has  left  in  the  lurch,  a  friend  with  whom 
he  dined  every  Sunday,  and  whom  he  has  known  for  twenty 
years?" 

"  Roguin  ?  A  fool ;  we  have  his  share.  Don't  be  down- 
hearted, my  good  friend,  it  will  be  all  right.  Pay  on  the 
15th,  and  that  done,  we  shall  see!  I  say,  'we  shall  see' — 
(a  glass  of  wine  !  ) — but  the  capital  is  no  concern  of  mine 
whatever.  Oh  !  if  you  should  not  pay  at  all,  /  should  not 
give  you  black  looks  ;  my  share  in  the  affair  is  limited  to  a 
percentage  on  the  purchase-money  and  something  down  on 
completion  of  the  contract,  in  consideration  of  which  I 
brought  round  the  vendors.  Do  you  understand  ?  Your  asso- 
ciates are  good  men,  so  I  am  not  afraid,  my  dear  sir.  Business  is 
so  divided  up  nowadays.  Every  business  requires  the  co- 
operation of  so  many  specialists  !  Do  you  join  the  rest  of  us? 
Then  do  not  dabble  in  combs  and  pomade-pots — a  paltry  way 
of  doing  business ;  fleece  the  public,  and  go  in  for  the  specu- 
lation." 

"A  speculation?"  asked  the  perfumer;  "what  sort  of 
business  is  it  ?  " 

"It  is  commerce  in  the  abstract,"  replied  Claparon,  "an 
affair  which  will  only  come  to  light  in  ten  years'  time  at  the 
bidding  of  the  great  Nucingen,  the  Napoleon  of  finance,  a 
scheme  by  which  a  man  embraces  sum-totals  and  skims  the 
cream  of  profits  yet  to  be  made  ;  a  gigantic  conception,  a 
method  of  marking  expectations  like  timber  for  annual  fell- 
ing; it  is  a  new  cabal,  in  short.  There  are  but  ten  or  twelve 
of  us  as  yet,  long-headed  men,  all  initiated  into  the  cabalistic 
secrets  of  these  magnificent  combinations." 


CM.SAR  BIROTTEAU.  257 

Cdsar  opened  his  eyes  and  ears,  trying  to  comprehend  these 
mixed  metaphors. 

"  Listen  to  me,"  Claparon  continued,  after  a  pause  ;  "  such 
strokes  as  these  need  very  capable  men.  Now,  there  is  the 
man  who  has  ideas  but  has  not  a  penny,  like  all  men  with 
ideas.  That  sort  of  man  spends  and  is  spent,  and  cares  for 
nothing.  Imagine  a  pig  roaming  about  a  wood  for  truffles, 
and  a  knowing  fellow  on  his  tracks ;  that  is  the  man  with  the 
money,  who  waits  till  he  hears  a  grunt  over  a  find.  When 
the  man  with  the  ideas  has  hit  upon  a  good  notion,  the  man 
with  the  money  taps  him  on  the  shoulder  with  a  '  What  is 
this?  You  are  putting  yourself  in  the  furnace-mouth,  my 
good  friend  ;  your  back  is  not  strong  enough  to  carry  this  ; 
here  are  a  thousand  francs  for  you,  and  let  me  put  this  affair 
in  working  order.'  Good!  Then  the  banker  summons  the 
manufacturers — '  Set  to  work,  my  friends  !  Out  with  your 
prospectuses  !  Blarney  to  the  death  !  '  Out  come  the  hunt- 
ing-horns, and  they  pipe  up  with  'A  hundred  thousand 
francs  for  five  sous  !  ' — or  five  sous  for  a  hundred  thousand 
francs,  gold-mines,  coal-mines;  all  the  flourishes  and  alarums 
of  commerce,  in  short.  Art  and  science  are  paid  to  give 
their  opinion,  the  affair  is  paraded  about,  the  public  rushes 
into  it  and  receives  paper  for  its  money,  and  our  takings  are 
in  our  hands.  The  pig  is  safe  in  his  stye  with  his  potatoes, 
and  the  rest  of  them  are  wallowing  in  bills  of  exchange. 
That  is  how  it  is  done,  my  dear  sir.  Go  in  for  speculation. 
What  do  you  want  to  be  ?  A  pig  or  a  gull,  a  clown  or  a 
millionaire  ?  Think  it  over.  I  have  summed  up  the  modern 
theory  of  loans  for  you.  Come  to  see  me  ;  you  will  find  a 
good  fellow,  always  jolly.  French  joviality,  at  once  grave 
and  gay,  does  no  harm  in  business,  quite  the  contrary  !  Men 
who  can  drink  are  made  to  understand  each  other.  Come  ! 
another  glass  of  champagne  ?  It  is  choice  wine,  eh  ?  It  was 
sent  me  by  a  man  at  Epernay,  for  whom  I  have  sold  a  good 
deal  of  it,  and  at  good  prices  too  (I  used  to  be  in  the  wine 
17 


258  CESAR    BIROTTEAU. 

trade).     He  shows  his  gratitude  and  remembers  me  in  my 
prosperity.     A  rare  trait." 

Birotteau,  bewildered  by  this  flippancy  and  careless  tone 
in  a  man  whom  everybody  credited  with  such  astonishing 
profundity  and  breadth,  did  not  dare  to  question  him  any 
further.  But,  in  spite  of  the  confusion  and  excitement  in- 
duced by  unwonted  potations  of  champagne,  a  name  let  fall 
by  du  Tillet  came  up  in  his  mind,  and  he  asked  for  the  ad- 
dress of  a  bill-discounter  named  Gobseck. 

"  Is  that  what  you  are  after,  my  dear  sir?  "  asked  Claparon. 
"  Gobseck  is  a  bill-discounter  in  the  same  sense  that  the 
hangman  is  a  doctor.  The  first  thing  that  he  says  to  you  is 
'Fifty  per  cent.'  He  belongs  to  the  school  of  Harpagon  ; 
he  will  supply  you  with  canary  birds  and  stuffed  boa-con- 
strictors, with  furs  in  summer  and  nankeen  in  winter.  And 
whose  bills  are  you  going  to  offer  him  ?  He  will  want  you  to 
deposit  your  wife,  your  daughter,  your  umbrella,  and  every- 
thing that  is  yours,  down  to  your  hat-box,  your  clogs  (do  you 
wear  hinged  clogs  ?),  poker  and  tongs,  and  the  firewood  in 
your  cellar,  before  he  will  take  your  bills  with  your  bare  name 
to  them  ! Gobseck  !  Gobseck !  In  the  name  of  mis- 
fortune, who  sent  you  to  the  guillotine  of  commerce?" 

"M.  du  Tillet." 

"Oh!  the  rogue;  just  like  him.  We  used  to  be  friends 
once  upon  a  time  ;  and  if  the  quarrel  has  gone  so  far  that  we 
do  not  speak  to  each  other  now,  I  have  good  reason  for  dis- 
liking him,  believe  me  !  He  let  me  see  to  the  bottom  of  his 
soul  of  mud,  and  he  made  me  uncomfortable  at  that  fine  ball  you 
gave.  I, cannot  bear  him,  with  the  coxcomb's  airs  he  gives 
himself,  because  he  has  the  good  graces  of  a  notaresse  !  I 
could  have  marquises  myself  if  I  had  a  mind  ;  he  will  never 
have  my  esteem,  I  know.  Ah  !  my  esteem  is  a  princess  who 
will  never  take  up  too  much  room  on  his  pillow.  I  say 
though,  old  man,  you  are  a  funny  one  to  give  us  a  ball  and 
then  come  and  ask  us  to  renew  two  months  afterward  !     You 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  259 

are  likely  to  go  far.  Let  us  go  into  speculation  together. 
You  have  a  character  ;  it  would  be  useful  to  me.  Oh  !  du 
Tillet  was  born  to  understand  Gobseck.  Du  Tillet  will  come 
to  a  bad  end  in  the  Place  de  Greve.  If,  as  they  say,  he  is  one 
of  Gobseck's  lambs,  he  will  soon  come  to  the  length  of  his 
tether.  Gobseck  squats  in  a  corner  of  his  web  like  an  old 
spider  who  has  seen  the  world.  Sooner  or  later,  zut !  and  the 
money-lender  sucks  in  his  man  like  a  glass  of  wine.  So 
much  the  better  !  Du  Tillet  played  me  a  trick — oh!  a  scurvy 
trick!  " 

After  an  hour  and  a  half  spent  in  listening  to  meaningless 
.prate,  Birotteau  determined  to  go,  for  the  commercial  trav- 
eler was  preparing  to  relate  the  adventure  of  a  representative 
of  the  people  at  Marseilles,  who  had  fallen  in  love  with  an 
actress  who  played  the  part  of  "  La  belle  Arsene."  The  Roy- 
alist pit  hissed  the  lady. 

"  Up  he  gets,"  said  Claparon,  "and  stands  bolt  upright  in 

his  box.      'Arte  qui  V a  siblee  ?  '  says  he  ;   '  eu  / Si  c1 "est 

oune  femme,  je  V amprise  ;  si  c' est  oune  homme,  nous  se  verrons  ; 

si  c'  est  ni  Vun  ni  V autte,  que  le  troun  di  Diou  le  cure  ?  ' 

How  do  you  think  the  adventure  ended  ?  " 

"Good-day,  sir,"  said  Birotteau. 

"You  will  have  to  come  and  see  me,"  said  Claparon  at 
this.  "  Cayron's  first  bill  has  come  back  protested,  and  I  am 
the  indorser  ;  I  have  reimbursed  the  money,  and  I  shall  send 
it  on  to  you,  for  business  is  business." 

Birotteau  felt  this  cold  affectation  of  a  readiness  to  oblige, 
as  he  had  already  felt  Keller's  hardness  and  Nucingen's  Teu- 
tonic banter,  in  his  very  heart.  The  man's  familiarity,  his 
grotesque  confidences  made  in  the  generous  glow  of  cham- 
pagne, had  been  like  a  blight  to  the  perfumer;  he  felt  as  if  he 
were  leaving  some  evil  haunt  in  the  world  financial. 

He  walked  downstairs  ;  he  found  himself  in  the  street  and 
went,  not  knowing  whither  he  went.  He  followed  the  boule- 
vard till  he  reached  the  Rue  Saint-Denis   then  he  bethought 


260  CfiSAR  BIROTTEAU. 

himself  of  Molineux,  and  turned  to  go  toward  the  Cour 
Batave.  He  mounted  the  same  dirty  tortuous  staircase  which 
he  had  ascended  but  lately  in  the  pride  of  his  glory.  He 
remembered  Molineux's  peevish  meanness,  and  winced  at  the 
thought  of  asking  a  favor  of  him.  As  on  the  occasion  of  his 
previous  visit,  he  found  the  owner  of  house-property  by  the 
fireside,  but  this  time  he  had  eaten  his  breakfast.  Birotteau 
formulated  his  demand. 

"  Renew  a  bill  for  twelve  hundred  francs?  "  said  Molineux, 
with  an  incredulous  smile.  "You  do  not  mean  it,  sir.  If 
you  have  not  twelve  hundred  francs  on  the  15  th  to  meet  my 
bill,  will  you  please  to  send  me  back  my  receipt  for  rent  that 
has  not  been  paid  ?  Ah  !  I  should  be  angry ;  I  do  not  use  the 
slightest  ceremony  in  money  matters  ;  my  rents  are  my  income. 
If  I  acted  otherwise,  how  should  I  pay  my  way  ?  A  man  in 
business  will  not  disapprove  of  that  wholesome  rule.  Money 
knows  nobody ;  money  has  no  ears  ;  money  has  no  heart.  It 
is  a  cold  winter,  and  here  is  firewood  dearer  again.  If  you 
do  not  pay  on  the  15th,  you  will  receive  a  little  summons  by 
noon  on  the  16th.  Pshaw !  old  Mitral,  who  serves  your  pro- 
cesses, acts  for  me  too ;  he  will  send  you  your  summons  in  an 
envelope,  with  due  regard  for  your  high  position."  , 

"A  writ  has  never  yet  been  served  on  me,  sir,"  said  Birot- 
teau. 

"Everything  must  have  a  beginning,"  retorted  Molineux. 

The  perfumer  was  taken  aback  by  the  little  old  man's  frank 
ferocity ;  the  knell  of  credit  rang  in  his  ears  ;  and  every  fresh 
stroke  awoke  memories  of  his  own  sayings  as  to  bankruptcies, 
prompted  by  his  remorseless  jurisprudence.  Those  opinions 
of  his  seemed  to  be  traced  in  letters  of  fire  on  the  soft  sub- 
stance of  his  brain. 

"By-the-by,"  Molineux  was  saying,  "you  forgot  to  write 
'  For  value  received  in  rent '  across  your  bills  ;  that  might 
give  me  a  preferential  claim." 

"  My  position  forbids  me  to  do  anything  to  the  prejudice 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  261 

of  my  creditors,"  said  Birotteau,  dazed  by  that  glimpse  into 
the  gulf  before  him. 

"  Good,  sir,  very  good.  I  thought  that  I  had  nothing  left 
to  learn  in  my  dealings  with  messieurs  my  tenants.  You  have 
taught  me  never  to  take  bills  in  payment.  Oh  !  I  will  take 
the  thing  into  court,  for  your  answer  as  good  as  tells  me  that 
you  will  not  meet  your  engagements.  The  case  touches  every 
landlord  in  Paris." 

Birotteau  went  out,  sick  of  life.  Feeble  and  tender  natures 
lose  heart  at  the  first  rebuff,  just  as  a  first  success  puts  courage 
into  them.  Cesar's  only  hope  now  lay  in  little  Popinot's 
devotion  ;  his  thoughts  naturally  turned  to  him  as  he  passed 
the  Marche  des  Innocents. 

"  Poor  boy  !  who  would  have  told  me  this  when  I  started 
him  six  weeks  ago  at  the  Tuileries  !  " 

It  was  nearly  four  o'clock,  the  time  when  the  magistrates 
leave  the  palais.  As  it  fell  out,  the  elder  Popinot  had  gone 
to  see  his  nephew.  The  examining  magistrate,  who  in  moral 
questions  had  a  kind  of  second-sight  which  laid  bare  the 
secret  motives  of  others,  who  discerned  the  underlying  signifi- 
cance of  the  most  commonplace  actions  of  daily  life,  the 
germs  of  crime,  the  roots  of  a  misdemeanor,  was  watching 
Birotteau,  though  Birotteau  did  not  suspect  it.  Birotteau 
seemed  to  be  put  out  by  finding  the  uncle  with  the  nephew; 
the  perfumer's  manner  was  constrained,  he  was  preoccupied 
and  thoughtful.  Little  Popinot,  busy  as  usual  with  his  pen 
behind  his  ear,  always  fell  flat,  figuratively  speaking,  before 
Cesarine's  father.  Cesar's  meaningless  remarks  to  his  partner, 
to  the  judge's  thinking,  were  merely  screens,  some  important 
demand  was  about  to  be  made.  Instead  of  leaving  the  shop, 
therefore,  the  shrewd  man  of  law  stayed  with  his  nephew  in 
spite  of  his  nephew,  for  he  thought  that  Cesar  would  try  to 
get  rid  of  him  by  making  a  move  himself.  And  so  it  was. 
When  Birotteau  had  gone  the  judge  followed,  but  he  noticed 
Cesar   lounging   along   the   Rue  des  Cinq-Diamants   in  the 


262  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

direction  of  the  Rue  Aubry-le-Boucher.  This  infinitely  small 
matter  bred  suspicion  in  the  mind  of  Popinot  the  elder;  he 
mistrusted  Cesar's  intentions,  went  along  the  Rue  des  Lom- 
bards, watched  the  perfumer  go  back  to  Anselme's  shop,  and 
promptly  repaired  thither. 

"  My  dear  Popinot,"  Cesar  had  begun,  "I  have  come  to 
ask  you  to  do  me  a  service." 

"What  is  there  to  be  done?"  asked  Popinot,  with  gener- 
ous eagerness. 

"Ah!  you  give  me  life!"  cried  the  good  man,  rejoicing 
in  this  warmth  from  the  heart  that  sent  a  glow  through  him 
after  those  twenty-five  days  of  glacial  cold.  "  It  is  this,  to 
allow  me  to  draw  a  bill  on  you  on  account  of  my  share  of  the 
profits;  we  will  settle  between  ourselves." 

Popinot  looked  steadily  at  Cesar ;  Cesar  lowered  his  eyes. 
Just  at  that  moment  the  magistrate  reappeared. 

"  My  boy — Oh  !    I  beg  your  pardon,  Monsieur  Birotteau — 

my  boy,  I  forgot  to  say  that "  and  with  the  imperative 

gesture  learned  in  the  exercise  of  his  profession,  the  elder 
Popinot  drew  his  nephew  out  into  the  street  and  marched 
him,  bareheaded  and  in  shirt-sleeves  as  he  was,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Rue  des  Lombards. 

"Your  old  master  will  verv  likely  find  himself  in  such 
straits  that  he  may  be  forced  to  file  his  schedule,  nephew. 
Before  a  man  comes  to  that,  a  man  who,  may  be,  has  a  record 
of  forty  years  of  upright  dealing,  nay  the  very  best  of  men, 
in  his  anxiety  to  save  his  honor,  will  behave  like  the  most 
frantic  gambler.  Men  in  that  predicament  will  do  anything. 
They  will  sell  their  wives  and  traffic  in  their  daughters ;  they 
will  bring  their  best  friends  into  the  scrape  and  pawn  property 
which  is  not  theirs ;  they  will  go  to  the  gaming-table,  turn 
actors — nay,  liars ;  they  will  shed  tears  at  need.  In  short,  I 
have  known  them  do  the  most  extraordinary  things.  You 
yourself  know  how  good-natured  Roguin  was,  a  man  who 
looked  as  though  butter  would  not  melt  in  his  mouth.     I  do 


C&SAR  BIROTTEAU.  263 

not  press  these  conclusions  home  in  Monsieur  Birotteau's 
case;  I  believe  that  he  is  honest ;  but  if  he  should  ask  you  to 
do  anything  at  all  irregular,  no  matter  what  it  is;  if  he  should 
want  you,  for  instance,  to  accept  accommodation  bills  and  so 
start  you  in  a  system  which,  to  my  way  of  thinking,  is  the 
beginning  of  all  sorts  of  rascality  (for  it  is  counterfeit  paper- 
money),  promise  me  that  you  will  sign  nothing  without  first 
consulting  me.  You  must  remember  that  if 'you  love  his 
daughter,  even  for  your  own  sake  and  hers,  you  must  not  spoil 
your  future.  If  Monsieur  Birotteau  must  come  to  grief,  what 
is  the  use  of  going  with  him?  What  is  it  but  cutting  your- 
selves off  from  all  chance  of  escape  through  your  business, 
which  will  be  his  refuge?" 

"Thank  you,  uncle;  a  word  to  the  wise  is  sufficient,"  said 
Anselme;  his  uncle's  words  explained  that  heartrending  cry 
from  his  master. 

The  merchant  who  dealt  in  druggists'  oils  and  sundries 
looked  thoughtful  as  he  entered  his  dark  store.  Birotteau 
saw  the  change. 

"Will  you  honor  me  by  coming  up  to  my  room?  we  can 
talk  more  at  our  ease  there  than  here.  The  assistants,  busy  as 
they  are,  might  overhear  us." 

Birotteau  followed  Popinot,  a  victim  to  such  cruel  suspense 
as  the  condemned  man  knows,  while  he  waits  for  a  reprieve 
or  the  rejection  of  his  appeal. 

"My  dear  benefactor,"  Anselme  began,  "you  do  not 
doubt  my  devotion;  it  is  blind.  Permit  me  to  ask  but  one 
thing,  will  this  sum  of  money  save  you  once  and  for  all  ?  Or 
will  it  merely  put  off  some  catastrophe?  in  which  case,  what 
is  the  use  of  carrying  me  with  you  ?  You  want  bills  at  ninety 
days.  Very  well,  but  I  am  sure  that  I  myself  shall  not  be  able 
to  meet  them  in  three  months'  time." 

Birotteau,  white  and  grave,  rose  to  his  feet,  and  looked  into 
Popinot's  face. 

Popinot,  in  alarm,  cried,  "I  will  do  it  if  you  wish  it." 


264  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"Ungrateful  boy!"  cried  the  perfumer,  gathering  alb  his 
strength  to  hurl  at  Anselme  the  words  which  should  brand  him 
as  infamous. 

Birotteau  walked  to  the  door  and  went.  Popinot,  recover- 
ing from  the  sensation  which  the  terrible  words  had  produced 
in  him,  darted  downstairs  and  rushed  into  the  street,  but  saw 
no  sign  of  the  perfumer.  The  dreadful  words  of  doom  rang 
in  the  ears  of  Cesarine's  lover,  poor  Cesar's  face  of  anguish 
was  always  before  his  eyes;  he  lived,  indeed,  like  Hamlet, 
haunted  by  a  ghastly  spectre. 

Birotteau  staggered  along  the  streets  like  a  drunken  man. 
He  found  himself  at  last  on  the  quay,  and  followed  its  course 
to  Sevres,  where  he  spent  the  night  in  an  inn,. stupefied  with 
sorrow ;  and  his  frightened  wife  dared  not  make  any  inquiries 
for  him.  Under  such  circumstances  it  is  fatal  to  give  the 
alarm  rashly.  Constance  wisely  immolated  her  anxiety  to  her 
husband's  business  reputation  ;  she  sat  up  all  night  for  him, 
mingling  prayers  with  her  fears.  Was  Cesar  dead  ?  Had  he 
left  Paris  in  the  pursuit  of  some  last  hope?  When  morning 
came  she  behaved  as  though  she  knew  the  cause  of  his  ab- 
sence ;  but  when  at  five  o'clock  Cesar  had  not  returned,  she 
sent  word  to  her  uncle  and  begged  him  to  go  to  the  morgue. 
All  through  that  day  the  brave  woman  sat  at  her  desk,  her 
daughter  doing  her  embroidery  by  her  side,  and,  neither  sad 
nor  smiling,  both  confronted  the  public  with  quiet  faces. 

When  Pillerault  came,  he  brought  Cesar  with  him  ;  he  had 
met  his  niece's  husband  after  'Change  in  the  Palais  Royal, 
hesitating  to  enter  a  gaming-house.     That  day  was  the  14th. 

Cesar  could  eat  nothing  at  dinner.  His  stomach,  too  vio- 
lently contracted,  rejected  food.  It  was  a  miserable  meal ; 
but  it  was  not  so  bad  as  the  evening  that  came  after  it.  For 
the  hundredth  time,  the  merchant  experienced  one  of  the 
hideous  alternations  of  despair  and  hope  which  wear  out  weak 
natures,  when  the  soul  passes  through  the  whole  scale  of  sen- 
sations, from  the  highest  pitch  of  joy  to  the  lowest  depths  of  de- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  265 

spair.  Derville,  the  consulting  barrister,  rushed  into  the  splen- 
did drawing-room.  Mine.  Cesar  had  done  everything  in  her 
power  to  keep  her  poor  husband  there  ;  he  had  wanted  to  sleep 
in  the  attic,  "so  as  not  to  see  the  monuments  of  my  folly," 
he  said. 

"  We  have  gained  the  day  !  "   cried  Derville. 

At  those  words  the  lines  in  Cesar's  face  were  smoothed  out, 
but  his  joy  alarmed  Pillerault  and  Derville.  The  two  fright- 
ened women  went  away  to  cry  in  Cesarine's  room. 

"  Now  I  can  borrow  on  the  property  !  "  exclaimed  the  per- 
fumer. 

"  It  would  not  be  wise  to  do  so,"  said  Derville  ;  "  they  have 
given  notice  of  appeal,  the  Court-Royal  may  reverse  the  de- 
cision, but  we  shall  know  in  a  month's  time." 

"A  month  !  " 

Cesar  sank  into  a  lethargy,  from  which  no  one  attempted 
to  rouse  him.  This  species  of  intermittent  catalepsy,  during 
which  the  body  lives  and  suffers  while  the  action  of  the  mind 
is  suspended,  this  fortuitous  respite  from  mental  anguish,  was 
regarded  as  a  godsend  by  Constance,  Cesarine,  Pillerault,  and 
Derville — and  they  were  right.  In  this  way  Birotteau  was 
able  to  recover  from  the  wear  and  tear  of  the  night's  emotions. 
He  lay  in  a  low  chair  by  the  fireside  ;  over  against  him  sat 
his  wife,  who  watched  him  closely,  with  a  sweet  smile  on  her 
lips — one  of  those  smiles  which  prove  that  women  are  nearer 
to  the  angels  than  men,  in  that  they  can  blend  infinite  ten- 
derness with  the  most  sincere  compassion,  a  secret  known 
only  to  the  angels  whose  presence  is  revealed  to  us  in  the 
dreams  providentially  scattered  at  long  intervals  in  the  course 
of  human  life.  Cesarine,  sitting  on  a  footstool  at  her 
mother's  feet,  now  and  again  bent  her  head  over  her  father's 
hands  and  brushed  them  lightly  with  her  hair,  as  if  by  this 
caress  she  would  fain  communicate  through  the  sense  of  touch 
the  thoughts  which  at  such  a  time  are  importunate  when  ren- 
dered by  articulate  speech. 


266  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

Pillerault,  that  philosopher  prepared  for  every  emergency, 
sat  in  his  armchair,  like  the  statue  of  the  chancellor  of  the 
hopital  in  the  peristyle  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  wearing 
the  same  look  of  intelligence  which  is  stamped  on  the  features 
of  an  Egyptian  sphinx,  and  talked  in  a  low  voice  with  Der- 
ville.  Constance  had  recommended  that  the  lawyer,  whose 
discretion  was  above  suspicion,  should  be  consulted.  With 
the  schedule  already  drafted  in  her  mind,  she  laid  the  situation 
before  Derville  ;  and  after  an  hour's  consultation  or  there- 
about, held  in  the  presence  of  the  dozing  perfumer,  Derville 
looked  at  Pillerault  and  shook  his  head. 

"Madame,"  said  he,  with  the  pitiless  coolness  of  a  man 
of  business,  "  you  must  file  your  petition.  Suppose  that  by 
some  means  or  other  you  should  contrive  to  meet  your 
bills  to-morrow,  you  must  eventually  pay  at  least  three  thou- 
sand francs  before  you  can  borrow  on  the  whole  of  your  landed 
property.  To  your  liabilities,  amounting  to  five  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  francs,  you  oppose  assets  consisting  of  a  very 
valuable  and  very  promising  piece  of  property  which  cannot 
be  realized — you  must  give  up  in  a  given  time,  and  it  is  better, 
in  my  opinion,  to  jump  from  the  window  than  to  roll  down 
the  stairs." 

"I  am  of  that  opinion,  too,  my  child,"  said  Pillerault. 

Mme.  Cesar  and  Pillerault  both  went  to  the  door  with  Der- 
ville. 

"Poor  father!  "  said  Cesarine,  rising  softly  to  put  a  kiss 
on  Cesar's  forehead.  "Then  could  Anselme  do  nothing?" 
she  asked,  when  her  mother  and  uncle  came  in  again. 

"The  ungrateful  boy!"  cried  Cesar.  The  name  had 
touched  the  one  sensitive  spot  in  his  memory,  like  the  string 
of  a  piano  resonant  to  the  stroke  of  the  hammer. 

Little  Popinot,  meanwhile,  since  those  words  had  been 
hurled  at  him  like  an  anathema,  had  not  had  a  moment's 
peace  nor  a  wink  of  sleep.  The  hapless  youth  called  down 
maledictions  on  his  uncle,  and  went  in  search  of  him.     To  in- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  267 

duce  experience  and  legal  acumen  to  capitulate,  young  Popi- 
not  poured  forth  all  a  lover's  eloquence,  hoping  to  work  on 
the  feelings  of  a  judge,  but  his  words  slid  over  the  man  of 
law  like  water  over  oilcloth. 

"  Commercial  usage,"  pleaded  Anselme,  "  permits  a  sleep- 
ing partner  to  draw  to  a  certain  extent  upon  his  co-associate 
on  account  of  profits;  and  in  our  partnership  we  ought  to 
put  it  in  practice.  After  looking  into  my  business  all  round, 
I  feel  sure  that  I  am  good  to  pay  forty  thousand  francs  in 
three  months'  time.  Birotteau's  honesty  permits  me  to  feel 
confident  that' he  will  use  the  forty  thousand  francs  to  meet 
his  bills.  So,  if  he  fails,  the  creditors  will  have  no  reason 
to  complain  of  this  action  on  our  part.  And,  beside,  uncle,  I 
would  rather  lose  forty  thousand  francs  than  give  up  Cesarine. 
At  this  moment,  while  I  am  speaking,  she  will  have  heard  of 
my  refusal  and  I  shall  be  lowered  in  her  eyes.  I  said  that  I 
would  give  my  life  for  my  benefactor  !  I  am  in  the  case  of 
the  young  sailor  who  must  go  to  the  bottom  with  his  captain 
or  the  soldier  who  is  bound  to  perish  with  his  general." 

"A  good  heart  and  a  bad  man  of  business;  you  will  not 
"be  lowered  in  my  eyes,"  said  the  judge,  grasping  his  nephew's 
hand.  "  I  have  thought  a  good  deal  about  this,"  he  con- 
tinued;  "I  know  that  you  love  Cesarine  to  distraction;  I 
think  that  you  can  obey  the  laws  of  your  heart  without  break- 
ing the  laws  of  commerce." 

"  Oh  !  uncle,  if  you  have  found  out  a  way,  you  will  save 
my  honor." 

"Lend  Birotteau  fifty  thousand  francs  on  his  proprietary 
interest  in  your  Oil ;  it  has  become,  as  it  were,  a  piece  of 
property  ;  I  will  draw  up  the  document  for  you." 

Anselme  embraced  his  uncle,  went  home,  made  out  bills 
for  fifty  thousand  francs,  and  ran  all  the  way  from  the  Rue 
des  Cinq-Diamants  to  the  Place  Vendome ;  so  that  at  the 
very  moment  when  Cesarine,  her  mother,  and  Pillerault  were 
gazing  at   the  perfumer,   amazed   by  the  sepulchral  tone  in 


268  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

which  the  words,  "  Ungrateful  boy  !  "  were  uttered  in  answer 
to  the  girl's  question,  the  drawing-room  door  opened  and 
Popinot  appeared. 

"  My  dearly  beloved  master,"  he  said,  wiping  the  perspi- 
ration from  his  forehead,  "  here  is  the  thing  for  which  you 
asked  me." 

He  held  out  the  bills. 

"  Yes.  I  have  thought  carefully  over  my  position  \  I  shall 
meet  them,  never  fear  !     Save  your  honor  !  " 

"  I  was  quite  sure  of  him,"  cried  Cesarine,  grasping  Popi- 
not's  hand  convulsively. 

Mme.  Cesar  embraced  Popinot.  The  perfumer  rose  out  of 
his  chair,  like  the  righteous  at  the  sound  of  the  last  trump ; 
he  too  was  issuing  from  a  tomb.  Then  with  frenzied  eager- 
ness he  clutched  the  fifty  stamped  papers. 

"  One  moment !  "  cried  the  stern  Uncle  Pillerault,  snatch- 
ing up  Popinot's  bills.     "  One  moment !  " 

The  four  persons  composing  this  family  group — Cesar  and 
his  wife,  Cesarine  and  Popinot — bewildered  by  their  uncle's 
interposition  and  by  the  tone  in  which  he  spoke,  looked  on 
in  terror  while  he  tore  the  bills  to  pieces  and  flung  them  into 
the  fire,  where  they  blazed  up  before  any  one  of  them  could 
stop  him. 

"Uncle!" 

"Uncle!" 

"Uncle!" 

"Sir!" 

There  were  four  voices  and  four  hearts  in  one,  a  formidable 
unanimity.  Uncle  Pillerault  put  an  arm  around  little  Popinot, 
held  him  tightly  to  his  heart,  and  put  a  kiss  on  his  forehead. 

"You  deserve  to  be  adored  by  any  one  who  has  a  heart  at 
all,"  said  he.  "If  you  loved  my  daughter,  and  she  had  a 
million,  and  you  had  nothing  but  that'1''  (he  pointed  to  the 
blackened  scraps  of  paper),  "  you  should  marry  her  in  a  fort- 
night if  she  loved  you.     Your  master,"  indicating  Cesar,  "is 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  269 

mad.  Now,  nephew,"  Pillerault  began  gravely,  addressing 
the  perfumer,  "no  more  illusions!  Business  must  be  carried 
on  with  hard  coin,  and  not  with  sentiments.  This  is  sublime, 
but  it  is  useless.  I  have  been  on  'Change  for  a  couple  of 
hours.  No  one  will  give  you  credit  for  two  centimes ;  every- 
body is  talking  about  your  disaster;  everybody  knows  that 
you  could  not  get  renewals,  that  you  went  to  more  than  one 
banker  and  that  they  would  have  nothing  to  say  to  you,  and 
all  your  other  follies;  it  is  known  that  you  climbed  six  pairs 
of  stairs  to  ask  a  landlord  who  chatters  like  a  jackdaw  to 
renew  a  bill  for  twelve  hundred  francs ;  everybody  says  that 
you  gave  a  ball  to  hide  your  embarrassment.  They  will  say 
directly  that  you  had  no  money  deposited  with  Roguin. 
Roguin  is  a  blind,  according  to  your  enemies.  One  of  my 
friends,  commissioned  to  report  everything,  has  brought  con- 
firmation of  my  suspicions.  Every  one  expects  that  you  will 
try  to  put  Popinot's  bills  on  the  market ;  in  fact,  you  set  him 
up  on  purpose  to  tide  you  over  your  difficulties.  In  short,  all 
the  gossip  and  slander  usually  set  in  motion  by  any  man  who 
tries  to  mount  a  step  in  the  social  scale  is  going  the  round  of 
business  circles  at  this  moment.  You  would  spend  a  week  in 
hawking  Popinot's  bills  from  place  to  place,  you  would  meet 
with  humiliating  refusals,  and  nobody  would  have  anything  to 
do  with  them.  There  is  nothing  to  show  how  many  of  them 
you  are  issuing,  and  people  look  to  see  you  sacrificing  this 
poor  boy  to  save  yourself.  You  would  ruin  Popinot's  credit 
in  pure  waste.  Do  you  know  how  much  the  most  sanguine 
bill-discounter  would  give  you  for  your  fifty  thousand  francs? 
Twenty  thousand  ;  twenty  thousand,  do  you  understand  ? 
There  are  times  in  business  when  you  must  contrive  to  hold 
out  for  three  days  without  food,  as  if  you  had  the  indigestion, 
and  the  fourth  brings  admission  to  the  pantry  of  credit.  You 
cannot  hold  out  for  the  three  days,  and  therein  lies  the  whole 
position.  But  take  heart,  my  poor  nephew,  you  must  file  your 
schedule.     Here  is  Popinot,  and  here  am  I ;  as  soon  as  your 


270  CESAR   BIROTTEAU. 

assistants  have  gone  to  bed  we  will  set  to  work  to  spare  you 
the  misery  of  it." 

"Uncle! "  cried  the  wretched  perfumer,  clasping  his 

hands. 

"  Cesar,  do  you  really  mean  to  arrive  at  a  fraudulent  bank- 
ruptcy with  assets  nil?  Your  interest  in  Popinot's  business 
saves  your  honor." 

This  last  fatal  light  thrown  on  his  position  made  it  clear 
to  Cesar ;  he  saw  the  full  extent  of  the  hideous  truth ;  he 
sank  down  into  his  low  chair,  and  then  on  to  his  knees ; 
his  mind  wandered,  he  became  a  child  again.  His  wife 
thought  the  shock  had  killed  him  and  knelt  to  raise  him, 
but  she  clung  close  to  him  when  she  saw  him  clasp  his 
hands  and  raise  his  eyes ;  and  in  spite  of  the  presence  of 
his  uncle,  his  daughter,  and  Popinot,  he  began  with  remorse- 
ful resignation  to  repeat  the  sublime  prayer  of  the  church 
on  earth — 

"Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven,  hallowed  be  Thy 
name.  Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be  done  in  earth, 
as  it  is  in  heaven.  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread.  And 
forgive  us  our  trespasses,  as  we  forgive  them  that  trespass 
against  us.  And  lead  us  not  into  temptation,  but  deliver 
us  from  evil.     Amen." 

Tears  filled  Pillerault's  stoical  eyes,  and  Cesarine  stood, 
white  and  rigid  as  marble,  with  her  tear-stained  face  hidden 
on  Anselme's  shoulder.  Then  the  old  merchant  took  the 
young  man's  arm,  "Let  us  go  downstairs,"  he  said. 

At  half-past  eleven  they  left  Cesar  in  the  care  of  his 
wife  and  daughter.  Just  at  that  moment  Celestin,  who  had 
looked  after  the  business  during  this  storm,  came  upstairs 
and  opened  the  drawing-room  door.  Cesarine  heard  his 
footsteps  and  hurried  forward  to  place  herself  so  as  to  screen 
the  prostrate  master  of  the  house. 

"Among  this  evening's  letters,"  he  said,  "  there  was  one 
from  Tours,  the  direction  was  not  clear,  it  has  been  delayed. 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  271 

I  thought  it  might  be  from  the  master's  brother,  so  I  did 
not  open  it." 

"Father,"  cried  Cesarine,  "there  is  a  letter  from  uncle 
at  Tours." 

"Ah!  I  am  saved!"  exclaimed  Cesar.  "My  brother! 
my  brother!  "  and  he  kissed  the  letter,  which  ran  thus: 

Francois  Birotteau  to  Cesar  Birotteau. 

"Tours,  17th. 
"My  beloved  Brother: — Your  letter  has  given  me  the 
keenest  distress ;  and  so  when  I  had  read  it,  I  offered  up 
to  God  on  your  behalf  the  holy  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  pray- 
ing Him,  by  the  blood  shed  for  us  by  our  divine  Redeemer, 
to  look  mercifully  upon  you  in  your  affliction.  And  now 
that  I  have  put  up  my  prayer  pro  meo  fratre  Ccssare,  my 
eyes  are  filled  with  tears  to  think  that  by  misfortune  I  am 
separated  from  you  at  a  time  when  you  must  need  the 
support  of  a  brother's  affection.  But  then  I  bethought  me 
that  the  worthy  and  venerated  M.  Pillerault  will  doubtless 
fill  my  place.  My  dear  Cesar,  in  the  midst  of  your  troubles, 
do  not  forget  that  this  life  of  ours  is  a  life  of  trial  and  a 
transition  state ;  that  one  day  we  shall  be  rewarded  if  we 
have  suffered  for  the  holy  name  of  God,  for  His  Holy  Church, 
for  putting  in  practice  the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  or  for 
leading  a  virtuous  life  ;  if  it  were  not  so,  the  things  of  this 
present  world  would  be  unintelligible.  I  repeat  these  words, 
though  I  know  how  good  and  pious  you  are,  because  it  may 
happen  to  those  who,  like  you,  are  tossed  by  the  tempests  of 
this  world  and  launched  upon  the  perilous  seas  of  human  con- 
cerns, to  be  led  to  blaspheme  in  their  distresses,  distracted  as 
they  are  by  pain.  Do  not  curse  the  men  who  will  wound 
you,  nor  God,  who  mingles  bitterness  with  your  life  at  His 
will.  Look  not  on  the  earth,  but  rather  keep  your  eyes  lifted 
to  heaven  ;  thence  comes  comfort  for  the  weak,  the  riches  of 
the  poor  are  there,  and  the  fears  of  the  rich " 


272  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"Oh,  Birotteau,"  interrupted  his  wife,  "just  miss  that  out 
and  see  if  he  is  sending  us  anything." 

"  We  will  often  read  it  over,"  said  her  husband,  drying  his 
eyes.  He  opened  the  letter  and  a  draft  on  the  Treasury  fell 
out.  "I  was  quite  sure  of  him,  poor  brother,"  said  Birot- 
teau, picking  up  the  draft. 

"I  went  to  see  Mme.  de  Listomere,"  he  continued,  reading 
in  a  voice  choked  with  tears,  "  and  without  giving  a  reason 
for  my  request,  I  begged  her  to  lend  me  all  that  she  could 
spare,  so  as  to  swell  the  amount  of  my  savings.  Her  gen- 
erosity enables  me  to  make  up  the  sum  of  a  thousand  francs, 
which  I  send  you  in  the  form  of  a  draft  by  the  receiver- 
general  of  Tours  upon  the  Treasury." 

"A  handsome  advance!"  said  Constance,  looking  at 
Cdsarine. 

"  By  retrenching  some  superfluities  in  my  way  of  living,  I 
shall  be  able  to  repay  Mme.  de  Listomere  the  money  I  have 
borrowed  of  her  in  three  years'  time ;  so  do  not  trouble  about 
it,  my  dear  Cesar.  I  am  sending  you  all  that  I  have  in  the 
world,  with  the  wish  that  the  sum  may  assist  you  to  bring 
your  difficulties  to  a  happy  termination  ;  doubtless  they  are 
but  momentary.  I  know  your  delicacy,  and  wish  to  anticipate 
your  scruples.  Do  not  dream  of  paying  any  interest  on  the 
amount,  nor  of  returning  it  in  the  day  of  prosperity,  which 
will  dawn  for  you  before  long,  if  God  deigns  to  grant  the 
petitions  which  I  make  daily  for  you.  ,  After  your  last  letter, 
received  two  years  ago,  I  thought  that  you  were  rich,  and 
that  I  might  give  my  savings  to  the  poor;  but  now  all  that  I 
have  belongs  to  you.  When  you  have  weathered  this  passing 
squall,  keep  the  money  for  my  niece  Cesarine,  so  that  when 
she  is  established  in  life  she  may  spend  it  on  some  trifle  which 
will   remind    her   of  an    old  uncle  whose  hands   are  always 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  273 

raised  to  heaven  to  implore  God's  blessing  upon  her,  and  for 
all  those  who  shall  be  dear  to  her.  Bear  in  mind,  in  fact, 
dear  Cesar,  that  I  am  a  poor  priest,  living  by  the  grace  of 
God,  as  the  wild-birds  live  in  the  fields,  walking  quietly  in 
my  own  path,  striving  to  keep  the  commandments  of  our 
divine  Saviour,  and  consequently  needing  but  little.  So  do 
not  have  the  least  hesitation  in  your  difficult  position,  and 
think  of  me  as  one  who  loves  you  tenderly.  Our  excellent 
Abbe  Chapeloud  (to  whom  I  have  not  said  a  word  about  your 
strait)  knows  that  I  am  writing  to  you,  and  wishes  me  to  send 
the  most  kindly  messages  to  all  your  family,  with  wishes  for 
your  continued  prosperity.  May  God  vouchsafe  to  preserve 
you  and  your  wife  and  daughter  in  good  health  ;  and  I  pray 
for  patience  to  you  all  and  courage  in  the  day  of  adversity. 

"  Francois  Birotteau. 

"  Priest  of  the  Cathedral  Church  of  Tours  and  Vicar  of  the 
Parish  Church  of  Saint-Gatien." 

"A  thousand  francs  !  "  cried  Mme.  Birotteau,  in  vehement 
anger. 

' '  Lock  it  up, "  Cesar  said  gravely ;  ' { it  is  all  he  has.  Beside, 
it  belongs  to  our  Cesarine,  and  should  enable  us  to  live  with- 
out asking  anything  of  our  creditors." 

"And  then  they  will  believe  that  you  have  taken  away 
large  sums." 

"I  shall  show  them  his  letter." 

"  They  will  say  that  it  is  a  fraud." 

"  Oh  !  my  God  !  my  God  !  "  cried  Cesar,  appalled  at  this ; 
"  I  have  often  thought  that  very  thing  of  poor  folk  who,  no 
doubt,  were  just  in  my  position." 

Mother  and  daughter  were  both  too  anxious  about  Cesar  to 

leave  him,  and  they  sewed  on  by  his  side.     There  was  a  deep 

silence.      At  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  drawing-room 

door  was  softly  opened  and  Popinot  beckoned  to  Mme.  C6sar 
is 


274  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

to  come  downstairs.  At  the  sight  of  his  niece,  who  had 
followed  him  into  the  store,  Uncle  Pillerault  took  off  his 
spectacles. 

"  There  is  hope  yet,  my  child,"  he  said  ;  "all  is  not  over; 
but  your  husband  could  not  stand  the  strain  of  the  ups  and 
downs  of  this  business,  so  Popinot  and  I  will  try  to  arrange 
it.  Do  not  leave  the  store  to-morrow,  and  take  down  the 
names  of  all  the  holders  of  the  bills ;  we  have  all  the  day  till 
four  o'clock.  This  is  my  idea :  There  is  nothing  to  fear  from 
Ragon  or  from  me.  Suppose  now  that  Roguin  had  paid  over 
to  the  vendors  the  hundred  thousand  francs  you  deposited 
with  him — in  that  case,  you  would  no  more  have  them  than 
you  have  them  to-day.  You  have  to  meet  bills  to  the  amount 
of  a  hundred  and  forty  thousand  francs,  payable  to  Claparon's 
order ;  you  must  pay  them  anyhow,  so  it  is  not  Roguin's 
bankruptcy  which  is  ruining  you.  Now,  to  meet  your  liabili- 
ties, I  see  forty  thousand  francs  to  be  borrowed  sooner  or 
later  on  your  factory,  and  sixty  thousand  francs  in  Popinot's 
bills.  So  you  may  struggle  through  ;  for,  once  through,  you 
can  raise  money  on  that  building  land  by  the  Madeleine.  If 
your  principal  creditor  agrees  to  help  you,  I  shall  not  consider 
my  fortune  ;  I  will  sell  my  rentes ;  I  shall  be  without  bread  ; 
Popinot  will  be  between  life  and  death  ;  and,  as  for  you,  you 
will  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  smallest  events.  But  the  Oil  will 
give  a  good  return,  no  doubt.  Popinot  and  I  have  been  con- 
sulting together  ;  we  will  support  you  in  this  struggle.  Oh, 
I  will  eat  my  dry  bread  gaily,  if  success  dawns  on  the  hori- 
zon. But  everything  depends  on  Gigonnet  and  on  Claparon 
and  his  associates.  We  are  going  to  see  Gigonnet  between 
seven  and  eight,  Popinot  and  I,  and  then  we  shall  know  what 
to  make  of  their  intentions." 

Constance,  carried  away  by  her  feelings,  put  her  arms  about 
her  uncle,  and  could  not  speak  for  tears  and  sobs.  Neither 
Popinot  nor  Pillerault  could  know  that  Bidault,  alias  Gigon- 
net, and   Claparon  were  but  two  of  du  Tillet's  doubles,  and 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  275 

that  du  Tillet  had  set  his  heart  upon  reading  this  terrible 
paragraph  in  the  "  Gazette:  " 

"  Decree  of  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce.  M.  Cesar  Birot- 
teau,  wholesale  perfumer,  of  397  Rue  Saint-Honore,  Paris, 
declared  a  bankrupt,  date  provisionally  fixed,  16th  of  January, 
1819.  Registrar:  M.  Gobenheim-Keller.  Agent:  M.  Moli- 
neux." 

Anselme  and  Pillerault  studied  Cesar's  affairs  till  daylight 
came,  and  at  eight  o'clock  that  morning  the  two  heroic  com- 
rades, the  old  veteran  and  the  subaltern  of  yesterday,  neither 
of  whom  was  destined  to  experience  on  his  own  account  the 
dreadful  agony  of  mind  endured  by  those  who  go  up  and 
down  the  stairs  of  Bidault,  otherwise  Gigonnet,  betook  them- 
selves without  a  word  to  the  Rue  Grenetat.  It  was  a  painful 
time  for  both  of  them.  More  than  once  Pillerault  passed  his 
hand  over  his  forehead. 

In  the  Rue  Grenetat  multifarious  small  trades  are  carried 
on  in  every  overcrowded  house.  Every  building  has  a  repul- 
sive aspect.  The  hideousness  of  these  houses  has  a  distinct 
quality  of  its  own,  in  which  the  mean  squalor  of  a  poor  indus- 
trial neighborhood  predominates. 

Old  Gigonnet  inhabited  the  fourth  floor  in  one  of  these 
houses.  All  the  windows,  with  their  dirty,  square  panes  of 
glass,  were  secured  to  the  frames  by  pivots,  and  tilted  to 
admit  the  air  ;  you  walked  straight  up  the  staircase  from  the 
street,  and  the  porter  lived  in  the  box  on  the  mezzanine  floor 
lighted  from  the  staircase.  Every  one  in  the  house,  except 
Gigonnet,  plied  some  handicraft  ;  workmen  came  and  went 
all  day  long.  Every  step  on  the  stairs,  where  filth  was  al- 
lowed to  accumulate,  was  plastered  over  with  a  coating  of 
mud,  hard  or  soft,  according  to  the  state  of  the  weather. 
Each  landing  on  this  fetid  stair  displayed  the  name  of  some 
craftsman  painted  in  gilt  letters  on  a  sheet  of  iron,  which  was 


276  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

painted  red  and  varnished,  and  some  sample  of  the  man's 
achievements  in  his  trade.  The  doors,  for  the  most  part, 
stood  ajar,  affording  glimpses  of  grotesque  combinations  of 
industry  and  domestic  life  ;  the  sounds  which  issued  thence, 
snatches  of  song,  yells,  whistlings,  and  uncouth  growls  re- 
called the  noises  heard  at  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  toward  four 
o'clock.  The  smartest  braces  for  the  trade  in  the  article  Paris 
were  being  made  in  a  loathsome  den  on  the  first  floor  ;  on 
the  second,  among  heaps  of  the  most  unsavory  litter,  the 
manufacture  of  the  dantiest  cardboard  boxes,  displayed  at 
the  New  Year  in  store  windows,  was  carried  on.  Gigonnet, 
who  was  worth  eighteen  hundred  thousand  francs,  lived  and 
died  on  the  fourth  floor  in  this  house.  Nothing  would  induce 
him  to  leave  it,  although  his  niece,  Mme.  Saillard,  offered 
him  rooms  in  a  mansion  in  the  Place  Royale. 

"Courage  !  "  said  Pillerault,  as  he  jerked  the  cord  of  the 
lever  bell-pull  that  hung  by  Gigonnet's  neat  gray-painted 
door. 

Gigonnet  himself  opened  it,  and  the  perfumer's  two  cham- 
pions in  the  lists  of  bankruptcy  went  through  a  formal,  chilly- 
looking  room,  with  curtainless  windows,  and  entered  a  second, 
where  all  three  seated  themselves. 

The  bill-discounter  took  up  his  position  before  a  grate  full 
of  ashes,  in  which  the  wood  maintained  a  stubborn  resistance 
to  the  flames.  The  sight  of  his  green  cardboard  cases  and 
the  monastic  austerity  of  the  office,  windy  as  a  cave,  sent  a 
cold  chill  through  Popinot.  His  dazed  eyes  wandered  over 
the  pattern  of  the  cheap  wall-paper — tricolor  flowers  on  a  bluish 
background — which  had  been  hung  some  five-and-twenty  years 
back;  and  turned  from  that  depressing  sight  to  the  ornaments 
on  the  chimney-piece,  a  lyre-shaped  clock  and  oval  vases,  blue 
Sevres  ware,  handsomely  mounted  in  gilt  copper.  This  bit  of 
flotsam,  recovered  by  Gigonnet  from  the  wreck  of  Versailles, 
when  the  palace  was  sacked  by  the  populace,  came  from  a 
queen's  boudoir,  but  the  magnificent-looking  ornaments  were 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  277 

flanked  by  a  couple  of  wrought-iron  candlesticks  of  the  com- 
monest description,  a  harsh  contrast  which  continually  re- 
minded the  beholder  of  the  manner  in  which  their  owner  had 
come  by  those  royal  splendors. 

"  I  know  that  you  cannot  come  on  your  own  account,"  said 
Gigonnet,  "  but  for  the  great  Birotteau.  Well,  what  is  it,  my 
friends?" 

"I  know  that  you  have  nothing  to  learn,  so  we  will  be 
brief,"  said  Pillerault.  "  Have  you  his  bills  payable  to  Cla- 
paron?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Will  you  exchange  the  first  fifty  thousand  francs  that  will 
fall  due  for  bills  accepted  by  Monsieur  Popinot  here,  less  the 
discount,  of  course?  " 

Gigonnet  lifted  the  terrible  green  cap,  which  seemed  to 
have  been  born  with  him,  and  displayed  a  bald  butter-colored 
pate,  then  with  a  Voltairean  grin — 

"You  want  to  pay  me  in  oil  for  hair,"  he  remarked,  "and 
what  should  I  do  with  it  ?  " 

"When  you  joke,  it  is  time  for  us  to  take  ourselves  off," 
said  Pillerault. 

"You  speak  like  the  sensible  man  that  you  are,"  said 
Gigonnet,  with  a  flattering  smile. 

"  Very  well,  and  how  if  I  back  Monsieur  Popinot's  bills  ?  " 
asked  Pillerault,  making  a  final  effort. 

"You  are  as  good  as  gold  ingots,  Monsieur  Pillerault; 
but  I  have  no  use  for  gold  ingots,  all  that  I  want  is  current 
coin." 

Pillerault  and  Popinot  took  their  leave  and  went.  Even 
at  the  foot  of  the  staircase  Popinot's  knees  still  shook  under 
him. 

"  Is  he  a  man  ?  "  he  asked  of  Pillerault. 

"  People  say  so,"  answered  the  older  one.  "  Keep  this 
little  interview  always  in  mind,  Anselme  !  You  have  seen 
what  money-lending  is,  stripped  of  its  masquerade  and  palaver. 


278  CASAR  BIROTTEAU. 

Some  unforeseen  event  turns  the  screw  upon  us,  and  we  are 
the  grapes  and  bill-discounters  the  barrels.  This  specula- 
tion in  building  land  is  a  good  piece  of  business,  no  doubt ; 
Gigonnet,  or  somebody  behind  him,  has  a  mind  to  cut  Cesar's 
throat  and  to  step  into  his  shoes.  That  is  all ;  there  is  no  help 
for  it  now.  And  this  is  what  comes  of  borrowing  money ; 
never  resort  to  it." 

It  had  been  a  dreadful  morning  for  Mme.  Birotteau.  For 
the  first  time  she  had  taken  the  addresses  of  those  who  came 
for  money,  and  had  sent  away  the  bank  collector  without 
paying  him ;  yet  the  brave  woman  was  glad  to  spare  her  hus- 
band these  humiliations.  Toward  eleven  o'clock  she  saw 
Pillerault  and  Anselme  returning ;  she  had  been  expecting 
them  with  ever-increasing  anxiety,  and  now  she  read  her 
doom  in  their  faces.  There  was  no  help  for  it,  the  schedule 
must  be  filed. 

"  He  will  die  of  grief,"  said  the  poor  wife. 

"  I  could  wish  that  he  might,"  said  Pillerault  gravely;  "but 
he  is  so  devout  that,  as  things  stand,  his  director  the  Abb6 
Loraux  alone  can  save  him." 

Pillerault,  Popinot,  and  Constance  remained  below,  while 
one  of  the  assistants  went  for  the  Abbe  Loraux.  The  abbe 
should  prepare  Birotteau  for  the  schedule  which  Celestin  was 
copying  out  fair  for  his  master's  signature.  The  assistants 
were  in  despair ;  they  loved  their  employer.  At  four  o'clock 
the  good  priest  came.  Constance  told  him  all  the  details  of 
the  calamity  which  had  befallen  them,  and  the  abbe  went  up- 
stairs like  a  soldier  mounting  to  the  breach. 

" 1  know  why  you  have  come,"  Cesar  exclaimed. 

"  My  son,"  said  the  priest,  "  your  sentiments  of  submission 
to  the  divine  will  have  long  been  known  to  me,  now  you  are 
called  upon  to  put  them  in  practice.  Keep  your  eyes  fixed 
ever  upon  the  cross,  contemplate  the  cross  without  ceasing, 
and  think  of  the  cup  of  humiliation  of  which  the  Saviour  of 
men  was  compelled  to  drink,  think  of  the  anguish  of  His 


CESAR  BIR0T1EAU.  279 

passion,  and  thus  you  may  endure  the  mortifications  sent  to 
you  by  God " 

"My  brother,  the  abbe,  has  already  prepared  me,"  said 
Cesar,  holding  out  the  letter,  which  he  read  over  again,  to 
his  confessor. 

"You  have  a  good  brother,"  said  M.  Loraux,  "a  virtuous 
and  sweet-natured  wife,  and  a  loving  daughter,  two  real 
friends  in  your  uncle  and  dear  Anselme,  two  indulgent 
creditors  in  the  Ragons.  All  these  kind  hearts  will  pour 
balm  into  your  wounds  continually,  and  will  help  you  to 
carry  your  cross.  Promise  me  to  bear  yourself  with  a 
martyr's  courage  and  to  take  the  blow  without  wincing." 

The  abbe  coughed,  a  signal  to  Pillerault  in  the  next  room. 

"My  submission  is  unlimited,"  said  Cesar  calmly.  "Dis- 
grace has  come  upon  me ;  I  ought  only  to  think  of  making 
reparation." 

Cesarine  and  the  priest  were  both  very  much  surprised  by 
poor  Birotteau's  tone  and  look.  And  yet  nothing  was  more 
natural.  Every  man  bears  a  definitely  known  misfortune 
better  than  suspense  and  constant  alternations  of  excessive 
joy  at  one  moment,  followed  on  the  next  by  the  last  extremity 
of  anguish. 

"I  have  been  dreaming  for  twenty-two  years,"  he  said, 
"and  to-day  I  wake  to  find  myself  staff  in  hand  again." 
Cesar  had  once  more  become  the  Tourangeau  peasant. 

At  these  words  Pillerault  held  his  nephew  tightly  in  his 
arms.  Cesar  looked  up  and  saw  his  wife  and  Celestin,  the 
latter  with  significant  documents  in  his  hands;  then  he 
glanced  calmly  round  the  group ;  all  the  eyes  that  met  his 
were  sad  but  friendly. 

"  One  moment !  "  he  said,  and  unfastening  his  cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor,  which  he  gave  to  the  Abbe  Loraux,  "you 
will  give  that  back  to  me  when  I  can  wear  it  without  a  blush. 
Celestin,"  he  continued,  turning  to  his  assistant,  "send  in 
my  resignation  ;  I  am  no  longer  deputy -mayor.      The  abbe 

a 


280  CESAR  B1ROTTEAU. 

will  dictate  the  letter  to  you,  date  it  January  14th,  and  send 
Raguet  with  it  to  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere." 

Celestin  and  the  Abbe  Loraux  went  downstairs.  For 
nearly  a  quarter  of  an  hour  perfect  silence  prevailed  in  Cdsar's 
study.  Such  firmness  took  the  family  by  surprise.  Celestin 
and  the  abbe  came  back  again,  and  Cesar  signed  the  letter  of 
resignation  ;  but  when  Pillerault  laid  the  schedule  before 
him  poor  Birotteau  could  not  repress  a  dreadful  nervous 
tremor. 

"  Oh,  God  !  have  mercy  upon  us  !  "  he  said,  as  he  signed 
the  terrible  instrument  and  handed  it  to  Celestin. 

Then  Anselme  Popinot  spoke,  and  a  gleam  of  light  crossed 
his  clouded  brow.  "  Monsieur  and  Madame,"  he  said,  "will 
you  grant  me  the  honor  of  mademoiselle's  hand  ?" 

This  speech  brought  tears  into  the  eyes  of  all  who  heard  it ; 
Cesar  alone  rose  to  his  feet,  took  Anselme's  hand,  and  said 
in  a  hollow  voice,  but  with  dry  eyes,  "  My  boy,  you  shall 
never  marry  a  bankrupt's  daughter." 

Anselme  looked  Birotteau  steadily  in  the  face. 

"Will  you  promise,  sir,  in  the  presence  of  your  whole 
family,  to  consent  to  our  marriage,  if  mademoiselle  will  take 
me  for  her  husband,  on  the  day  when  you  shall  have  paid  all 
your  creditors  in  full?  " 

There  was  a  moment's  pause,  Every  one  felt  the  influence 
of  the  emotion  recorded  in  the  perfumer's  weary  face. 

"Yes,"  he  said  at  last. 

Anselme  stretched  out  his  hand  to  Cesarine  with  an  inde- 
scribable gesture  ;  she  gave  him  hers,  and  he  kissed  it. 

"  Do  you  also  consent  ?  "  he  asked  her. 

"  Yes,"  she  said. 

"So,  I'm  really  one  of  the  family.  I  have  a  right  to  in- 
terest myself  in  your  affairs,"  was  his  comment,  with  an 
enigmatical  look. 

Anselme  hurried  away  lest  he  should  betray  a  joy  in  too 
great  contrast  with  his  master's  trouble,     Anselme  was  not 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  281 

exactly  delighted  with  the  bankruptcy  ;  but  so  absolute,  so 
egoistical  is  love,  that  Cesarine  herself  in  her  inmost  heart 
felt  a  glow  of  happiness  strangely  at  variance  with  her  bitter 
distress  of  mind. 

"  While  we  are  about  it,  let  us  strike  every  blow  at  once," 
said  Pillerault  in  Constance's  ear. 

An  involuntary  gesture,  a  sign  not  of  assent,  but  of  sorrow, 
was  Mme.  Birotteau's  answer. 

"What  do  you  mean  to  do,  nephew?"  said  Pillerault, 
turning  to  Cesar. 

"To  continue  the  business." 

"I  am  not  of  that  opinion,"  said  Pillerault.  "  Go  into 
liquidation,  let  your  assets  go  to  your  creditors  in  the  shape  of 
dividend,  and  go  out  of  business  altogether.  I  have  often 
thought  what  I  should  do  if  I  were  placed  in  a  similar  posi- 
tion. (Oh  !  you  must  be  prepared  for  everything !  The 
merchant  who  does  not  contemplate  possible  insolvency  is 
like  a  general  who  does  not  lay  his  account  with  a  defeat ;  he 
is  only  half  a  merchant.)  I  myself  should  never  have  gone 
on  again.  What !  Be  compelled  to  blush  before  men  whom 
I  should  have  wronged,  to  endure  their  suspicious  looks  and 
unspoken  reproaches?  I  can  think  of  the  guillotine — in  one 
instant  all  is  over;  but  to  carry  a  head  on  your  shoulders  to 
have  it  cut  off  daily  is  a  kind  of  torture  from  which  I  should 
escape.  Plenty  of  men  begin  again  as  though  nothing  had 
happened  ;  so  much  the  better  for  them  ! — they  are  braver 
than  Claude-Joseph  Pillerault.  If  you  pay  your  way  (and  pay 
ready  money  you  must)  people  will  say  that  you  managed  to 
save  something  for  yourself;  and  if  you  have  not  a  halfpenny, 
you  will  never  recover.  'Tis  good-evening  to  you.  Surren- 
der your  assets,  let  them  sell  you  up,  and  do  something  else." 

"But  what?"  asked  Cesar. 

"Eh  !  try  for  a  place  under  the  Government,"  said  Piller- 
ault; "you  have  influence,  have  you  not?  There  are  the 
Due  and  Duchesse  de   Lenoncourt,   Madame   de   Mortsauf, 


282  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

Monsieur  de  Vandenesse  !  Write  to  them,  go  to  see  them, 
they  will  find  you  some  post  in  the  household,  with  a  thou- 
sand crowns  or  so  hanging  to  it  ;  your  wife  will  earn  as  much 
again  ;  your  daughter,  perhaps,  may  do  the  same.  The  case 
is  not  desperate.  You  three  among  you  will  earn  something 
like  ten  thousand  francs  a  year.  In  ten  years'  time  you  will 
be  in  a  position  to  pay  a  hundred  thousand  francs,  for  you 
will  have  no  expenses  meanwhile  ;  your  womankind  shall  have 
fifteen  hundred  francs  from  me  ;  and,  as  for  you,  we  shall  see." 

It  was  Constance,  and  not  Cesar,  who  pondered  these  wise 
words,  and  Pillerault  went  on  'Change.  At  that  time  stock- 
brokers used  to  congregate  in  a  provisional  structure  of  planks 
and  scaffolding,  a  large  circular  room,  with  an  entrance  in 
the  Rue  Feydeau.  The  perfumer's  failure  was  already  known 
and  had  created  a  sensation  in  high  commercial  circles,  for 
their  prevailing  politics  were  constitutional  at  that  time. 
Birotteau  was  a  conspicuous  personage,  and  envied  by  many. 
Merchants,  on  the  other  hand,  who  leaned  toward  Liberalism, 
regarded  Birotteau's  too  celebrated  ball  as  an  audacious  at- 
tempt to  trade  on  their  sentiments,  for  the  Opposition  were 
fain  to  monopolize  patriotism.  Royalists  were  allowed  to 
love  the  King,  but  the  love  of  their  country  was  the  exclusive 
privilege  of  the  Left,  the  Left  was  for  the  people ;  and  those 
in  power  had  no  right  to  rejoice  thus  vicariously  through  the 
administration,  in  a  national  event  which  the  Liberals  meant 
to  exploit  for  their  own  benefit.  For  which  reasons  the  fall 
of  a  Ministerialist  in  favor  at  Court,  of  an  incorrigible  Roy- 
alist who  had  insulted  Liberty  by  fighting  against  the  glorious 
French  Revolution  on  Vendemiaire  13th,  set  all  tongues 
wagging  on  'Change,  and  was  received  with  almost  universal 
applause. 

Pillerault  wanted  to  know  what  was  being  said,  and  to  study 
public  opinion.  He  went  up  to  one  of  the  most  eager  groups  ; 
du  Tillet,  Gobenheim-Keller,  Nucingen,  old  Guillaume  and 
his  son-in-law  Joseph  Lebas,  Claparon,  Gigonnet,  Mongenod, 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  283 

Camusot,  Gobseck,  Adolphe  Keller,  Palma,  Chiffreville,  Mati- 
fat,  Grindot,  and  Lourdois  were  discussing  the  news. 

"Well,  well,  how  careful  one  had  need  to  be!"  said 
Gobenheim,  addressing  du  Tillet ;  "my  brothers-in-law  all 
but  opened  an  account  with  Birotteau,  it  was  a  near  thing." 

"  I  am  let  in  for  ten  thousand  francs  myself,"  said  du  Tillet; 
"  he  came  to  me  a  fortnight  ago  and  I  let  him  have  the  money 
on  his  bare  signature.  But  he  obliged  me  once,  and  I  shall 
lose  it  without  regret." 

"Your  nephew  is  like  the  rest,"  said  Lourdois,  addressing 
Pillerault.  "  Gave  entertainments.  I  can  imagine  that  a 
rogue  might  try  to  throw  dust  in  your  eyes  to  induce  confi- 
dence ;  but  how  could  a  man  who  passed  for  the  cream  of 
honest  folk  descend  to  the  stale  mountebank's  trickery  that 
never  fails  to  catch  us?  " 

"Like  leeches,"  commented  Gobseck. 

"  Only  trust  a  man  if  he  lives  in  a  den  like  Claparon,"  said 
Gigonnet. 

"Veil,"  said  the  stout  Baron  Nucingen,  for  du  Tillet's 
benefit,  "  you  haf  dried  to  blay  me  a  nice  drick,  sending 
Pirodot  to  me.  I  do  not  know,"  he  went  on,  turning  to 
Gobenheim  the  manufacturer,  "  why  he  did  not  send  rount  to 
me  for  vifty  tousend  vrancs  ;  I  should  haf  led  him  haf  dem." 

"Oh!  not  you,  Monsieur  le  Baron,"  said  Joseph  Lebas. 
"  You  must  have  known  quite  well  that  the  bank  had  refused 
his  paper;  you  were  on  the  Discount  Committee  which  de- 
clined it.  This  poor  man,  for  whom  I  still  feel  a  very  great 
respect,  fails  under  singular  circumstances " 

Pillerault  grasped  Joseph  Lebas'  hand. 

"It  is,  in  fact,  impossible  to  explain  how  the  thing  has 
happened,"  said  Mongenod,  "  except  by  the  theory  that  there 
is  some  one  behind  Gigonnet,  some  banker  whose  intention 
it  is  to  spoil  the  Madeleine  speculation." 

"The  thing  which  has  happened  to  him  always  happens  to 
people  who  go  out  of  their  own  line,"  said  Claparon,  inter- 


284  CESAR  BIRO'JTEAU. 

rupting  Mongenod.  "  If  he  had  brought  out  his  Cephalic  Oil 
himself,  instead  of  sending  up  the  price  of  building  lots  in 
Paris  by  rushing  into  land  speculation,  he  would  have  lost  his 
hundred  thousand  francs  through  Roguin,  but  he  would  not 
have  gone  bankrupt.  He  will  start  afresh  under  the  name  of 
Popinot." 

"Keep  an  eye  on  Popinot,"  said  Gigonnet. 

According  to  this  crowd  of  merchants,  Roguin  was  "  poor 
Roguin;"  the  perfumer  was  that  "unlucky  Birotteau."  A 
great  passion  seemed  to  excuse  the  one,  the  other  appeared 
the  more  to  blame  on  account  of  his  pretensions.  Gigonnet 
left  the  Exchange  and  took  the  Rue  Perrin-Gasselin  on  his 
way  home  to  the  Rue  Grenetat.  He  looked  in  on  Mme. 
Madou,  the  dry-fruit  saleswoman. 

"Well,  old  lady,"  said  he,  with  his  cruel  good  humor, 
"  and  how  are  we  getting  on  in  our  way  of  business  ?  " 

"Middling,"  said  Mme.  Madou  respectfully,  and  she 
offered  the  money-lender  her  only  armchair  with  a  friendly 
officiousness  which  she  had  never  shown  to  any  one  else  but 
the  dear  departed. 

Mother  Madou,  who  would  fell  a  carman  with  a  blow  if  he 
were  refractory  or  carried  a  joke  too  far,  who  had  not  feared 
to  assist  at  the  storming  of  the  Tuileries  on  the  ioth  of  Octo- 
ber, who  railed  at  her  best  customers  (for  that  matter,  she  was 
capable  of  heading  a  deputation  of  the  Dames  de  la  Halle, 
and  speaking  to  the  King  himself  without  a  tremor) — Ange. 
lique  Madou  received  Gigonnet  with  the  utmost  respect.  She 
was  helpless  in  his  presence  ;  she  winced  under  his  hard  eyes. 
It  will  be  a  long  while  yet  before  the  executioner  ceases  to  be 
a  terror  to  the  people,  and  Gigonnet  was  the  executioner  of 
the  small  traders.  The  man  who  sets  money  in  circulation  is 
more  looked  up  to  in  the  Great  Market  than  any  other  power ; 
all  other  human  institutions  are  as  naught  compared  with  him. 
For  them  the  Commissaire  is  Justice  personified,  and  with  the 
Commissaire  they  of  the  Market  become  familiar.     But  the 


C&SAR  B1R0TTEAU.  285 

sight  of  the  money-lender  intrenched  behind  his  green  card- 
board cases,  of  the  usurer  whom  they  implore  with  fear  in 
their  hearts,  dries  up  the  sources  of  wit,  parches  the  throat, 
and  abashes  the  bold  eyes ;  the  people  grow  respectful  in  his 
presence. 

"  Have  you  come  to  ask  something  of  me?"  said  she. 

"  A  mere  trifle  ;  be  prepared  to  refund  the  amount  of  Birot- 
teau's  bills,  the  old  man  has  gone  bankrupt,  so  all  outstanding 
claims  must  be  sent  in ;  I  shall  send  you  in  a  statement  to- 
morrow." 

The  pupils  of  Mme.  Madou's  eyes  first  contracted  like  the 
eyes  of  a  cat,  then  flames  leaped  forth  from  them. 

"  O  the  beggar  !  O  the  scamp  !  and  he  came  here  himself 
to  tell  me  that  he  was  deputy-mayor,  piling  on  his  lies.  The 
Lord  ha'  mercy  !  That's  just  the  way  with  business ;  there 
is  no  trusting  mayors  nowadays ;  the  Government  cheats  us  ! 
You  wait,  I  will  have  the  money  out  of  them,  I  will " 

"Eh  !  every  one  comes  out  of  this  sort  of  thing  the  best 
way  he  can,  my  little  dear!  "  said  Gigonnet,  lifting  one  leg 
with  the  precise  little  gesture  of  a  cat  picking  its  way  among 
puddles,  a  trick  to  which  he  owed  his  nickname.*  "Some 
swells  have  been  let  in  who  mean  to  get  themselves  out  of  the 
scrape " 

"  Good  !  good  !  I  will  get  my  hazelnuts  out.  Marie 
Jeanne  !  my  clogs  and  my  lamb's-wool  shawl.  Quick  !  or  I 
will  lend  you  a  clout  that  will  warm  your  cheeks." 

"  That  will  make  it  hot  for  them  yonder  up  the  street," 
said  Gigonnet  to  himself,  as  he  rubbed  his  hands.  "  Du 
Tillet  will  be  satisfied ;  there  will  be  a  scandal  in  the  quarter. 
What  that  poor  devil  of  a  perfumer  can  have  done  to  him,  I 
don't  know  ;  for  my  own  part,  I  am  as  sorry  for  the  man  as 
for  a  dog  with  a  broken  paw.  He  isn't  a  man  ;  he  has  no 
fight  in  him." 

Mme.   Madou  broke  out  like  an  insurrection  in  the  Fan» 
*  Gigonnet,  from  Gigotter,  to  kick  the  legs  about. 


286  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

bourg  Saint-Antoine  toward  seven  o'clock  that  evening,  and 
swept  to  the  luckless  Birotteau's  door,  which  she  opened  with 
unnecessary  violence,  for  her  walk  had  had  an  exciting  effect. 

"Brood  of  vermin,  I  must  have  my  money,  I  want  my 
money  !  You  give  me  my  money  !  or  I  will  have  sachets  and 
satin  gimcracks  and  fans  till  I  have  the  worth  of  my  two  thou= 
sand  francs  !  A  mayor  robbing  the  people  !  Did  any  one 
ever  see  the  like?  If  you  don't  pay  me,  I  will  send  him  to 
jail ;  I  will  go  for  the  public  prosecutor ;  I  will  put  the  whole 
posse  of  them  on  his  tracks  !  I  do  not  stir  from  here  without 
my  money,  in  fact." 

She  looked  as  if  she  would  open  the  glass-door  of  a  cup- 
board in  which  expensive  goods  were  kept. 

"The  Madou  is  about  helping  herself,"  said  Celestin  in  a 
low  voice  to  his  neighbor.  The  lady  overheard  the  remark, 
for  during  a  paroxysm  of  rage  the  senses  are  either  deadened 
or  preternaturally  alert,  according  to  the  temperament.  She 
bestowed  on  Celestin  the  most  vigorous  box  on  the  ear  ever 
given  and  received  in  a  perfumer's  store. 

"  Learn  to  respect  women,  my  cherub,"  quoth  she,  "and 
not  to  bedraggle  the  names  of  the  people  you  rob." 

Mme.  Birotteau  came  forward  from  the  back-store.  Her 
husband  by  chance  was  also  there  ;  in  spite  of  Pillerault  he 
chose  to  remain,  carrying  his  humility  and  obedience  to  the 
law  so  far  as  to  be  ready  to  submit  to  be  put  in  prison. 
"  Madame,"  said  Constance,  "for  heaven's  sake,  do  not  bring 
a  crowd  together  in  the  street." 

"Eh!  let  them  come  in,"  cried  the  saleswoman,  "I  will 
tell  them  about  it ;  it  will  make  them  laugh  !  Yes,  my  goods 
and  the  francs  I  made  by  the  sweat  of  my  brow  go  for  you  to 
give  balls.  You  go  dressed  like  a  queen  of  France,  forsooth, 
and  fleece  poor  lambs  like  me  for  the  wool !  Jesus  /  stolen 
goods  would  burn  my  shoulders,  I  know  !  I  have  nothing  but 
shoddy  on  my  carcase,  but  it  is  my  own  !  Bandits  and  thieves  ! 
my  money,  or " 


"/  MUST  HAVE  MY  MONEY,  I  WANT  MY  MONEY!" 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  287 

She  pounced  upon  a  pretty  inlaid  case  full  of  costly  per- 
fumery. 

"Leave  it  alone,  madame,"  said  Cesar,  appearing  on  the 
scene;  "nothing  here  belongs  to  me,  it  is  all  the  property  of 
my  creditors.  I  have  nothing  left  but  myself;  and  if  you  have 
a  mind  to  seize  me  and  put  me  in  jail,  I  give  you  my  word  of 
honor"  (a  tear  overflowed  his  eyes  at  this)  "that  I  will 
wait  here  for  your  process-server,  police-officer,  and  bailiff's 
men." 

From  his  tone  and  gesture,  he  evidently  meant  to  do  as  he 
said  ;  Mme.  Madou's  anger  died  down. 

"A  notary  has  absconded  with  my  money,  and  the  disasters 
which  I  cause  come  through  no  fault  of  mine,"  Cesar  went 
on ;  "  but  in  time  you  shall  be  paid,  if  I  have  to  work 
myself  to  death  and  earn  the  money  by  my  hands  as  a  market- 
porter." 

"Come,  you  are  a  good  man,"  said  the  market-woman. 
"  Excuse  my  speaking,  madame  ;  but  I  shall  have  to  fling 
myself  into  the  river,  for  Gigonnet  will  be  down  upon  me,  and 
I  have  nothing  but  bills  at  ten  months  to  give  for  your  cursed 
paper. ' ' 

"  Come  round  and  see  me  to-morrow  morning,"  said  Pille- 
rault,  coming  forward  ;  "  I  will  arrange  the  business  for  you  at 
five  per  cent,  with  a  friend  of  mine." 

"Well!  that  is  good  Father  Pillerault !  Why,  yes,  he  is 
your  uncle,"  she  went  on,  turning  to  Constance.  "Come, 
now,  you  are  honest  folk;  I  shall  not  lose  anything,  shall  I? 
Good-by  till  to-morrow,  old  Brutus,"  she  added,  for  the  ben- 
efit of  the  retired  hardware  merchant. 

Cesar  insisted  on  remaining  amid  the  ruins  of  his  glory  and 
would  hear  of  no  other  course ;  he  said  that  by  so  doing  he 
could  explain  his  position  to  all  his  creditors.  In  this  deter- 
mination Uncle  Pillerault  upheld  Cesar  in  spite  of  the  entreaties 
of  his  niece.  Cesar  was  persuaded  to  go  upstairs,  and  then 
the  wily  old  man  hurried  to   M.  Haudry,  put  Cesar's  case 


288  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

before  him,  obtained  a  prescription  for  a  sleeping-draught,  had 
it  made  up,  and  went  back  to  spend  the  evening  in  his  nephew's 
house.  With  Cesarine's  assistance  he  constrained  Cesar  to 
drink  as  they  did  ;  the  narcotic  did  its  work  ;  and  fourteen 
hours  later  Birotteau  awoke  to  find  himself  in  Pillerault's  own 
bedroom  in  the  Rue  des  Bourdonnais,  a  prisoner  in  the  house 
of  his  uncle,  who  slept  on  a  camp  bedstead  put  up  in  the 
sitting-room. 

When  Pillerault  had  put  Cesar  into  the  cab,  and  Constance 
had  heard  it  roll  away,  then  her  courage  failed  her.  Our 
strength  is  often  called  forth  by  the  necessity  of  sustaining 
some  one  weaker  than  ourselves ;  and  the  poor  woman,  now 
that  she  was  left  alone  with  her  daughter,  wept  as  she  would 
have  wept  for  Cesar  if  he  had  been  lying  dead. 

"Mamma,"  said  Cesarine,  seating  herself  on  her  mother's 
knee,  with  the  gracious  kitten-like  ways  that  women  only 
display  for  each  other,  "you  said  that  if  I  bore  my  part 
bravely,  you  would  be  able  to  face  adversity.  So  do  not 
cry,  mother  dear.  I  am  ready  to  work  in  a  store ;  I  will 
forget  what  we  have  been  ;  I  will  be  a  forewoman,  as  you  were 
when  you  were  a  girl ;  you  shall  never  hear  a  regret  or  a  com- 
plaint from  me.  And  I  have  a  hope.  Did  you  not  hear 
Monsieur  Popinot  ?" 

"  Dear  boy  !  he  shall  not  be  my  son-in-law." 

"Oh!  mamma " 

'.'  He  will  be  my  own  son." 

"There  is  this  one  good  thing  about  trouble,  it  teaches  us 
to  know  our  real  friends,"  said  Cesarine;  and,  changing 
places  with  her  mother,  she  at  last  comforted  her  and  soothed 
the  poor  woman's  grief. 

The  next  morning  Constance  left  a  note  for  the  Due  de 
Lenoncourt,  one  of  the  first  gentlemen  of  the  bedchamber. 
She  asked  for  an  interview  at  a  certain  hour.  Meanwhile, 
she  went  to  M.  de  la  Billardiere,  told  him  of  the  predicament 
in  which  Cesar  found  himself  in  consequence  of  Roguin's 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  289 

flight  from  the  country,  and  begged  the  mayor  to  give  her 
his  support  with  the  Duke  and  to  speak  for  her,  for  she 
feared  that  she  might  express  herself  ill.  She  wanted  some 
post  for  Birotteau.  Birotteau  would  be  the  most  honest  of 
cashiers,  if  there  are  degrees  in  the  quality  of  honesty. 

"The  King  has  just  appointed  the  Comte  de  Fontaine  as 
comptroller-general  of  the  royal  household ;  there  is  no  time 
to  be  lost." 

At  two  o'clock  La  Billardiere  and  Mme.  Cesar  ascended 
the  great  staircase  of  the  Hotel  de  Lenoncourt  in  the  Rue 
Saint-Dominique,  and  were  brought  into  the  presence  of  one 
of  the  nobles  highest  in  the  King's  favor,  in  so  far  as  Louis 
XVIII.  could  be  said  to  have  preferences.  The  gracious 
reception  accorded  to  her  by  a  great  noble,  one  of  the  little 
group  who  formed  a  connecting  link  between  the  eighteenth- 
century  noblesse  and  those  of  the  nineteenth,  put  hope  into 
Mme.  Cesar.  The  perfumer's  wife  was  great  and  simple  in 
her  sorrow;  sorrow  ennobles  the  most  commonplace  natures, 
for  it  has  a  grandeur  of  its  own,  but  only  those  who  are  true 
and  sincere  can  take  its  polish.  Constance  was  essentially 
sincere.  It  was  a  question  of  prompt  application  to  the 
King. 

In  the  midst  of  the  discussion,  M.  de  Vandenesse  was 
announced. 

"  Here  is  your  deliverer,"  exclaimed  the  Duke. 

Mme.  Birotteau  was  not  unknown  to  the  young  man,  who 
had  been  once  or  twice  to  the  perfumer's  store  for  those  trifles 
which  are  as  often  of  as  much  importance  as  great  things. 
The  Duke  explained  La  Billardiere's  views ;  and,  when  Van- 
denesse learned  the  disasters,  he  went  immediately  with  La 
Billardiere  to  see  the  Comte  de  Fontaine  on  behalf  of  the 
Marquise  d'Uxelles'  godson.  Mine.  Birotteau  was  asked  to 
await  the  result. 

M.  le  Comte  de  Fontaine,  like  La  Billardiere,  was  one  of 
the  provincial  noblesse,  the  almost  unknown   heroes  of  La 
19 


290  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

Vendee.  Birotteau  was  no  stranger  to  him,  for  he  had  seen 
the  perfumer  at  the  Queen  of  Roses  in  former  days.  At  that 
time,  those  who  had  shed  their  blood  for  the  Royalist  cause 
enjoyed  privileges,  which  the  King  kept  secret  for  fear  of 
hurting  Liberal  susceptibilities,  and  M.  de  Fontaine,  one  of 
the  King's  favorites,  was  supposed  to  be  in  the  confidence  of 
Louis  XVIII.  Not  only  did  this  influential  person  definitely 
promise  to  obtain  a  post  for  the  perfumer,  but  he  went  to  the 
Due  de  Lenoncourt,  then  in  attendance,  to  ask  him  for  a 
moment's  speech  with  the  King  that  evening,  and  to  entreat 
for  La  Billardiere  an  audience  with  Monsieur  the  King's 
brother,  who  had  a  particular  regard  for  the  old  Vendean. 

That  very  evening  M.  le  Comte  de  Fontaine  came  from  the 
Tuileries  to  inform  Mme.  Birotteau  that,  as  soon  as  her  hus- 
band had  received  his  discharge,  he  would  be  appointed  to  a 
post  worth  two  thousand  five  hundred  francs  per  annum  in 
the  Sinking  Fund  Department,  all  places  in  the  household 
being  at  that  time  filled  with  noble  supernumeraries  to  whom 
the  Royalist  family  were  bound. 

This  success  was  but  a  part  of  the  task  undertaken  by  Mme. 
Birotteau.  The  poor  woman  went  to  Joseph  Lebas  at  the 
sign  of  the  Cat  and  Racket  in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis.  On  the 
way  thither  she  met  Mme.  Roguin  in  her  showy  carriage, 
doubtless  on  a  shopping  expedition.  Their  eyes  met,  and  the 
visible  confusion  on  the  beautiful  face  of  the  notary's  wife,  at 
this  meeting  with  the  woman  who  had  been  brought  to  ruin, 
gave  Constance  courage. 

"  Never  will  I  drive  in  a  carriage  paid  for  with  other  peo- 
ple's money,"  said  she  to  herself. 

Welcomed  by  Joseph  Lebas,  she  asked  him  to  look  for  a 
situation  for  her  daughter  in  some  respectable  house  of  business. 
Lebas  made  no  promises,  but  a  week  later  it  was  arranged  that 
Cesarine  should  be  placed  in  a  branch  of  one  of  the  largest 
dry  goods  establishments  in  Paris,  which  had  just  been  opened 
in  the  Quartier  des  Italiens.     She  was  to  live  in  the  house, 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  291 

and  to  take  charge  of  the  store  and  counting-room,  with  a 
salary  of  three  thousand  francs.  She  would  represent  the 
master  and  mistress,  and  the  forewoman  was  to  act  under  her 
orders. 

As  for  Mme.  Cesar  herself,  she  went  on  the  same  day  to 
ask  Popinot  to  allow  her  to  take  charge  of  the  books,  the  cor- 
respondence, and  the  household.  Popinot  knew  well  that  this 
was  the  one  commercial  house  in  which  the  perfumer's  wife 
might  take  a  subordinate  position  and  still  receive  the  respect 
due  her.  The  noble-hearted  boy  installed  her  in  his  house, 
gave  her  a  salary  of  three  thousand  francs,  arranged  to  give 
his  own  room  to  her,  and  went  up  into  the  attic.  And  so  it 
came  to  pass  that  the  beautiful  woman,  after  one  short  month 
spent  amid  novel  splendors,  was  compelled  to  take  up  her 
abode  in  the  poor  room  where  Gaudissart,  Anselme,  and 
Finot  had  inaugurated  the  Cephalic  Oil. 

The  Tribunal  of  Commerce  had  appointed  Molineux  as 
agent,  and  he  came  to  take  formal  possession  of  Cesar's  prop- 
erty. Constance,  with  Celestin's  help,  went  through  the  in- 
ventory with  him  ;  and  then  mother  and  daughter  went  to 
stay  with  Pillerault.  They  went  out  on  foot  and  simply 
dressed,  and  without  turning  their  heads,  and  this  was  their 
leave-taking  of  the  house  in  which  they  had  spent  the  third 
part  of  a  lifetime.  Silently  they  walked  to  the  Rue  des  Bour- 
donnais,  and  dined  with  Cesar,  for  the  first  time  since  their 
separation.  It  was  a  melancholy  dinner.  They  had  each 
had  time  to  think  over  the  position,  to  weigh  the  burden  laid 
upon  them,  to  estimate  their  courage.  All  three  were  like 
sailors,  prepared  to  face  the  coming  tempest  without  blinking 
the  danger.  Birotteau  took  heart  again  when  he  heard  that 
great  personages  had  interested  themselves  for  him  and  pro- 
vided for  It  is  future  ;  but  he  broke  down  when  he  heard  of 
the  arrangement  which  had  been  made  for  his  daughter. 
Then  hearing  how  bravely  his  wife  had  begun  to  work  again,. 
he  held  out  his  hand  to  her. 


292  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

Tears  filled  Pillerault's  eyes  for  the  last  time  in  his  life  at 
the  sight  of  this  pathetic  picture  of  the  father,  mother,  and 
daughter  united  in  one  embrace;  while  Birotteau,  the  most 
helpless  and  downcast  of  the  three,  held  up  his  hand  and  cried, 
"  We  must  hope  !  " 

"  To  save  expense,  you  must  live  here  with  me;  you  shall 
have  my  room  and  share  my  bread.  For  a  long  time  past  I 
have  been  tired  of  living  alone ;  you  will  take  the  place  of 
that  poor  boy  I  lost.  And  it  will  only  be  a  step  from  here  to 
your  office  in  the  Rue  d'Oratoire." 

"Merciful  God!"  cried  Birotteau.  "There  is  a  star  to 
guide  me  when  the  storm  is  at  its  height." 

By  resignation  to  his  fate,  the  victim  of  a  misfortune  con- 
sumes his  misfortune.  Birotteau  could  fall  no  further;  he 
had  accepted  the  position,  he  became  strong  again. 

In  France,  when  a  merchant  has  filed  his  petition,  the  only 
thing  he  need  trouble  himself  to  do  is  to  retreat  to  some  oasis 
at  home  or  abroad  where  he  may  passively  exist  like  the  child 
that  he  is  in  the  eye  of  the  law;  theoretically  he  is  a  minor, 
and  incapable  of  acting  in  any  capacity  as  a  citizen.*  Prac- 
tically, however,  he  is  by  no  means  a  nullity.  He  does  not, 
indeed,  show  his  face  until  he  receives  a  "certificate  of  im- 
munity from  arrest  "  (which  no  registrar  nor  creditor  has  been 
known  to  refuse),  for  if  he  is  found  at  large  without  it  he  is 
liable  to  be  put  in  prison  ;  but  once  provided  with  his  safe- 
conduct,  his  flag  of  truce,  he  can  take  a  stroll  through  the 
enemy's  camp,  not  from  idle  curiosity,  but  to  counteract  and 
thwart  the  evil  intentions  of  the  law  with  regard  to  bankrupts. 

A  prodigious  development  of  perverse  ingenuity  is  the 
direct  result  of  any  law  which  touches  private  interests.     The 

*  In  France  a  bankrupt  loses  his  civil  and  political  status  ;  he  recovers 
the  right  of  administering  his  own  affairs  after  his  discharge  ;  but  the  dis- 
abilities are  only  removed  by  rehabilitation.  This  is  an  order  granted  by 
the  court  when  it  is  proved  that  the  bankrupt  has  paid  debts  and  costs  in 
full. 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  293 

one  thought  of  a  bankrupt,  as  of  everybody  else  who  finds  his 
purposes  crossed  in  any  way  by  the  law  of  the  land,  is  how  to 
evade  it.  The  period  of  civil  death,  during  which  time  a 
bankrupt  must  be  considered  as  a  kind  of  commercial  chrysalis, 
lasts  for  three  months  or  thereabouts,  the  interval  required  for 
the  formalities  which  must  be  gone  through  before  creditors 
and  debtor  sign  a  treaty  of  peace,  otherwise  known  as  a  con- 
cordat, a  word  which  indicates  very  clearly  that  concord  reigns 
after  the  storm  raised  by  the  clashing  of  various  interests  which 
run  counter  to  one  another. 

Directly  the  schedule  is  deposited,  the  Tribunal  of  Com- 
merce appoints  a  registrar  to  watch  over  the  interests  of  the 
throng  of  unascertained  creditors  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  to  protect  the  bankrupt  from  the  vexatious  importunities 
and  inroads  of  infuriated  creditors,  a  double  part  which  pre- 
sents magnificent  possibilities  if  registrars  had  but  time  to 
develop  them.  The  registrar  authorizes  an  agent  by  procura- 
tion to  take  formal  possession  of  the  bankrupt's  property, 
bills,  and  effects,  and  the  agent  checks  the  statement  of  assets 
in  the  schedule ;  lastly,  the  clerk  of  the  court  convenes  a 
meeting  of  creditors,  by  tuck  of  drum  ;  that  is  to  say,  by  adver- 
tisements in  the  newspapers.  The  creditors,  genuine  or  other- 
wise, are  called  upon  to  assemble  and  agree  among  themselves 
to  appoint  provisional  trustees,  who  shall  replace  the  agent, 
step  into  the  bankrupt's  shoes,  and,  by  a  legal  fiction,  become 
indeed  the  bankrupt  himself.  These  have  power  to  realize 
everything,  to  make  compromises,  or  to  sell  outright ;  in 
short,  to  wind  up  the  whole  business  for  the  benefit  of  the 
creditors,  provided  that  the  bankrupt  makes  no  opposition. 
As  a  rule,  in  Paris,  the  bankruptcy  is  not  carried  beyond  the 
stage  of  the  provisional  trustees,  and  for  the  following  reasons : 

The  nomination  of  trustees  is  a  proceeding  calculated  to 
stir  up  more  angry  feeling  than  any  other  resolution  which  can 
be  passed  by  an  assembly  of  men,  deluded,  baffled,  befooled, 
ensnared,  bamboozled,  robbed,  cheated,  and  thirsting  for  ven- 


294  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

geance ;  and  albeit,  as  a  general  thing,  the  creditor  is  cheated, 
robbed,  bamboozled,  ensnared,  befooled,  baffled,  and  deluded, 
in  Paris  no  commercial  crisis,  no  feeling,  however  high,  can 
last  for  three  mortal  months.  Nothing  in  commerce  but  a 
bill  of  exchange  is  capable  of  starting  up  clamorous  for  pay- 
ment at  the  expiration  of  ninety  days.  Before  the  three 
months  are  out,  all  the  creditors,  exhausted  by  the  wear  and 
tear,  and  worn  out  by  the  marches  and  countermarches  of 
the  liquidation,  sleep  soundly  by  the  side  of  their  excellent 
little  wives.  These  facts  may  enable  those  who  are  not 
Frenchmen  to  understand  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  ap- 
pointment of  provisional  trustees  is  usually  final ;  out  of  a 
thousand  provisional  trustees,  there  are  not  five  who  are  ap- 
pointed to  carry  the  thing  further.  The  reasons  of  the  swift 
abjuration  of  commercial  enmity  which  has  its  source  in  a 
failure  may  be  imagined  ;  but  for  those  who  have  not  the  good 
fortune  to  be  merchants,  some  explanation  of  the  drama 
known  as  bankruptcy  is  necessary  if  they  are  to  comprehend 
how  it  constitutes  the  most  monstrous  legal  farce  in  Paris  and 
understand  the  ordinary  rule  to  which  Cesar's  case  was  to  be 
so  marked  an  exception : 

A  failure  in  business  is  a  thrilling  drama  in  three  distinct 
acts.  Act  the  first  may  be  called  The  Agent ;  act  the  second, 
The  Trustees;  and  act  the  third,  The  Concordat,  or  payment 
of  composition.  The  spectacle  is  twofold,  as  is  the  case  with 
plays  performed  on  the  stage ;  for  there  is  the  spectacular 
effect  intended  for  the  public,  and  the  more  or  less  invisible 
mechanism  by  which  the  effects  are  produced,  and  the  same 
play  if  seen  before  and  behind  the  scenes  looks  quite  different 
from  different  points  of  view.  In  the  wings  stand  the  bank- 
rupt and  his  attorney  (one  of  the  advocates  who  practice  at  the 
Tribunal  of  Commerce),  and  the  trustees  and  agent  and  the 
registrar  complete  the  list. 

Nobody  outside  Paris  knows  what  no  Parisian  can  fail  to 
know,  that  a  registrar  is  the  most  extraordinary  kind  of  magis- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  295 

trate  which  the  freaks  of  civilization  have  devised.  In  the 
first  place  he  is  a  judge  who,  at  every  moment  of  his  official 
life,  may  go  in  fear  that  his  own  measure  may  be  dealt  to  him 
again.  Paris  has  even  seen  the  president  of  her  Tribunal  of 
Commerce  compelled  to  file  his  petition  ;  and  the  ordinary 
judge,  who  is  called  upon  to  act  as  a  registrar,  is  no  venerable 
merchant  retired  from  business,  whose  magistracy  is  a  tribute 
to  a  stainless  career,  but  the  active  senior  partner  of  some 
great  house,  a  man  burdened  with  the  responsibility  of  vast 
enterprises.  It  is  a  sine  qua  non  that  a  judge  who  is  bound  to 
give  decisions  on  the  torrents  of  commercial  disputes  which 
pour  incessantly  upon  the  capital  shall  have  as  much  or  more 
business  of  his  own  than  he  can  manage. 

Thus  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce,  which  might  have  been  a 
useful  transition  stage  and  half-way  house  between  the  trading 
community  and  the  regions  of  the  noblesse,  is  composed  of 
busy  merchants,  who  may  one  day  be  made  to  suffer  for  un- 
popular awards,  and  a  Birotteau  among  them  may  find  a  du 
Tillet. 

The  judge  or  registrar,  therefore,  is  of  necessity  a  personage 
in  whose  presence  a  great  deal  is  said  to  which  perforce  he 
lends  an  ear,  thinking  the  while  of  his  private  concerns.  He 
is  very  apt  to  leave  public  business  in  the  hands  of  the  trus- 
tees and  the  attorneys  who  practice  at  the  Tribunal  of  Com- 
merce, unless  some  odd  and  unusual  case  turns  up ;  some 
instance  of  theft  under  curious  circumstances,  to  draw  from 
him  the  remark  that  either  the  creditor  or  the  debtor  must  be 
a  clever  fellow.  This  personage  set  on  high  above  the  scene, 
like  the  portrait  of  a  king  in  an  audience-chamber,  is  to  be 
seen  of  a  morning  from  five  to  seven  o'clock  in  his  yard  if  he 
is  a  lumber  merchant ;  in  his  store,  if,  like  Birotteau,  he  is  a 
perfumer;  and  again  in  the  evening  at  dessert  after  dinner, 
but  always  and  in  any  case  terribly  busy.  For  these  reasons 
this  functionary  is  usually  dumb. 

Let  us  do  justice  to  the  law;  the  registrar's  hands  are  tied 


296  CASAK  BIROTTEAU. 

by  the  hasty  legislation  which  provided  for  these  matters ; 
and  many  a  time  he  sanctions  frauds  which  he  is  powerless  to 
hinder,  as  will  shortly  be  seen. 

The  agent,  instead  of  being  the  creditor's  man,  may  play 
into  the  debtor's  hands.  Each  creditor  hopes  to  swell  his 
share  and  in  some  way  to  make  better  terms  for  himself  with 
the  bankrupt,  whom  every  one  suspects  of  a  secret  hoard. 
The  agent  can  make  something  out  of  both  sides,  by  dealing 
leniently  with  the  bankrupt  on  the  one  hand,  or,  on  the  other, 
by  securing  something  for  the  more  influential  creditors,  and 
in  this  way  can  hold  with  the  hare  and  run  with  the  hounds. 
Not  unfrequently  a  crafty  agent  has  annulled  a  judgment  by 
buying  out  the  creditors  and  releasing  the  merchant,  who 
springs  up  again  at  a  rebound  like  an  india-rubber  ball. 

The  agent  turns  to  the  best  furnished  crib ;  he  will,  if  nec- 
essary, cover  the  largest  creditors  and  let  the  debtor  go  bare, 
or  he  will  sacrifice  the  creditors  to  the  merchant's  future,  as 
suits  him  best.  So  the  whole  drama  turns  on  the  first  act ; 
and  the  agent,  like  the  attorney  of  the  Tribunal,  is  the  utility- 
man  in  a  piece  in  which  neither  will  play  unless  he  is  sure  of 
his  fees  beforehand.  In  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  cases 
out  of  a  thousand,  the  agent  is  for  the  debtor. 

At  the  time  when  this  story  took  place,  it  was  the  practice 
of  attorneys  at  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce  to  go  to  the  judge 
who  was  to  act  as  registrar  and  nominate  a  man  of  their  own, 
some  one  who  knew  something  of  the  debtor's  affairs  and 
could  manage  to  reconcile  the  interests  of  the  many  and  of 
the  one — the  honorable  trader  who  had  fallen  into  misfortune. 
Of  late  years  it  has  been  the  practice  of  shrewd  judges  to 
wait  till  this  has  been  done  so  as  to  avoid  the  nominee,  and 
to  make  an  effort  to  appoint  a  man  of  passable  integrity. 

During  this  first  act  the  creditors,  genuine  or  presumed, 
present  themselves  to  select  the  provisional  trustees,  an  ap- 
pointment which,  as  has  been  said,  is  practically  final.  In 
this  electoral  assembly  every  creditor  has  a  voice,  whether  his 


CESAR   BIROTTEAV.  297 

claim  is  for  fifty  sous  or  fifty  thousand  francs,  and  the  votes 
are  reckoned  by  count  and  not  by  weight.  The  names  of  the 
trustees  are  proposed  at  the  meeting,  packed  by  the  debtor 
with  sham  creditors  (the  only  ones  who  never  fail  to  put  in  an 
appearance)  ;  and  from  the  names  thus  sent  in,  the  registrar, 
the  powerless  president,  is  bound  to  choose  those  who  shall 
act.  Naturally,  therefore,  the  registrar  takes  the  trustees  from 
the  debtor's  hands,  another  abuse  which  turns  this  catastrophe 
into  one  of  the  most  burlesque  dramas  sanctioned  by  a  court 
of  justice.  The  "honorable  trader  fallen  into  misfortune" 
is  master  of  the  situation,  and  proceeds  to  carry  out  a  pre- 
meditated robbery  with  the  law  at  his  back.  In  Paris,  as  a 
rule,  the  petty  tradesmen  are  blameless.  Before  a  storekeeper 
files  his  schedule,  the  poor  honest  fellow  has  left  no  stone 
unturned ;  he  has  sold  his  wife's  shawl  and  pawned  his 
spoons  and  forks ;  and  when  he  gives  in  at  last,  it  is  with 
empty  hands,  he  is  utterly  ruined,  and  has  not  even  money  to 
pay  the  attorney,  who  troubles  himself  very  little  about  his 
client. 

The  law  demands  that  the  concordat,  which  remits  a  part 
of  the  debt  and  restores  the  debtor  to  the  management  of  his 
affairs,  should  be  put  to  the  vote  and  carried  by  a  sufficient 
majority,  with  due  regard  to  the  amounts  claimed  by  the 
voters.  To  secure  the  majority  is  a  great  feat  which  demands 
the  most  skillful  diplomacy  on  the  part  of  the  debtor,  his 
attorney,  and  the  trustees  amid  the  clash  of  conflicting  inter- 
ests. The  ordinary  commonplace  stratagem  consists  in  offer- 
ing to  such  a  body  of  the  creditors  as  will  represent  the 
majority  required  by  the  law  a  premium  to  be  paid  over  and 
above  the  dividend  which  the  meeting  of  creditors  is  to  consent 
to  accept.  For  this  gigantic  swindle  there  is  no  remedy.  Suc- 
cessive Tribunals  of  Commerce,  familiar  with  it  by  dint  of  prac- 
tice in  non-official  capacity  and  grown  wise  by  experience, 
have  decided  of  late  that  all  claims  are  made  void  where  there 
is  a  suspicion  of  fraud  ;  thus  it  is  to  the  debtor's  interest  to 


298  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

complain  of  the  "extortion,"  and  the  judges  of  the  Tribunal 
hope  in  this  way  to  raise  the  moral  tone  of  proceedings  in 
liquidation.  But  they  will  only  succeed  in  making  matters 
worse ;  creditors  will  exercise  their  ingenuity  to  invent  still 
more  rascally  devices,  which  the  judges  will  brand  as  regis- 
trars and  profit  by  as  merchants. 

Another  extremely  popular  expedient,  which  gave  rise  to 
the  expression  "serious  and  legitimate  creditor,"  consists  in 
creating  creditors,  much  as  du  Tillet  created  a  firm  of  bankers. 
By  introducing  a  sufficient  number  of  Claparons  into  the 
meeting,  the  debtor,  in  these  diverse  manifestations,  receives 
a  share  of  the  spoils,  and  sensibly  diminishes  the  dividends 
of  the  real  creditors.  This  plan  has  a  double  advantage : 
The  debtor  obtains  resources  for  the  future,  and  at  the  same 
time  secures  the  proper  number  of  votes  representing  (to  all 
appearance)  a  sufficient  proportion  of  the  claims  upon  the 
estate,  the  majority  necessary  for  his  discharge.  These  "  gay 
bogus  creditors  "  are  like  sham  electors  in  the  electoral  col- 
lege. What  help  has  the  "  serious  bond-fide  creditor  "  against 
his  "  gay  bogus  "  compeer?  He  can  rid  himself  of  him  by 
attacking  him  !  Very  good.  But  if  the  "serious  and  bond- 
fide"  creditor  means  to  oust  the  intruder,  he  must  leave  his 
own  business  to  take  care  of  itself,  and  he  must  employ  an 
attorney;  and,  as  the  said  attorney  makes  little  or  nothing  out 
of  the  case,  he  prefers  to  "conduct  "  bankruptcies,  and  does 
not  take  a  bit  of  pettifogging  business  too  seriously.  Then, 
at  the  outset,  before  the  "gay  and  bogus"  one  can  be  un- 
earthed, a  labyrinth  of  procedure  must  be  entered  upon,  the 
bankrupt's  books  must  be  gone  through  to  some  remote  epoch, 
and  application  must  be  made  to  the  Court  to  require  that  the 
books  of  the  pretended  creditor  shall  be  likewise  produced  ; 
the  improbability  of  the  fiction  must  be  set  forth  and  clearly 
proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  judges  of  the  Tribunal,  and 
the  serious  creditor  must  come  and  go  and  plead  and  arouse 
interest  in  the  indifferent.     This  Quixotic  performance,  more- 


CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  299 

over,  must  be  gone  through  afresh  in  each  separate  case ;  and 
each  gay  and  bogus  creditor,  if  fairly  convicted  of  "gaiety," 
makes  his  bow  to  the  Court  with  an  "Excuse  me,  there  is 
some  mistake;  I  am  very  serious  indeed."  All  this  is  done 
without  prejudice  to  the  rights  of  the  debtor,  who  may  appeal 
and  bring  Don  Quixote  into  the  Court-Royal.  And  in  the 
meantime  Don  Quixote's  own  affairs  go  askew,  and  he  too 
may  be  compelled  to  file  his  schedule. 

Moral :  Let  the  debtor  choose  his  trustees,  verify  the  claims, 
and  arrange  the  amount  of  composition  himself. 

Given  these  conditions,  who  cannot  imagine  the  underhand 
schemes,  the  tricks  worthy  of  Sganarelle,  stratagems  that  a 
Frontin  might  have  devised,  the  lies  that  would  do  credit  to 
a  Mascarille,  the  empty  wallets  of  a  Scapin,  and  all  the  results 
of  these  two  systems  ?  Any  bankruptcy  since  insolvency  came 
into  fashion  would  supply  a  writer  with  material  sufficient  to 
fill  the  fourteen  volumes  of  "Clarissa  Harlowe."  A  single 
example  shall  suffice : 

The  illustrious  Gobseck,  the  master  at  whose  feet  the  Pal- 
mas,  Gigonnets,  Werbrusts,  Kellers,  and  Nucingens  of  Paris 
have  sat,  once  found  himself  among  the  creditors  of  a  bank- 
rupt who  had  managed  to  swindle  him,  and  whom,  on  that 
account,  he  proposed  to  handle  roughly.  Of  this  person  he 
received  bills  to  fall  due  after  the  discharge  for  a  sum  which 
(taken  together  with  the  dividends  received  at  the  time) 
should  pay  the  amount  owing  to  him  (Gobseck)  in  full.  Gob- 
seck, in  consequence,  recommended  that  a  final  dividend  of 
twenty-five  per  cent,  be  paid.  Behold  the  creditors  swindled 
for  Gobseck's  benefit  !  But  the  merchant  had  signed  the 
illegal  bills  in  the  name  of  the  insolvent  firm  ;  and  when  the 
time  came,  a  dividend  of  twenty-five  per  cent,  was  all  that  he 
could  be  made  to  pay  upon  them,  and  Gobseck,  the  great 
Gobseck,  received  a  bare  fifty  per  cent.  He  always  took  off 
his  hat  with  ironical  respect  when  he  met  that  debtor. 

As  all  transactions  which  take  place  within  ten  days  before 


300  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

the  time  when  a  man  files  his  schedule  are  open  to  question, 
certain  prudent  prospective  bankrupts  are  careful  to  break 
ground  early,  and  to  approach  some  of  their  creditors,  whose 
interest  it  is,  not  less  than  their  own,  to  arrive  at  a  prompt 
settlement.  Then  the  more  astute  creditors  will  go  in  search 
of  the  simple  or  of  the  very  busy,  paint  the  failure  in  the 
darkest  colors,  and  finally  buy  up  their  claims  for  half  their 
value.  When  the  estate  is  liquidated,  these  shrewd  folk  come 
by  the  dividend  on  their  own  share,  and  make  fifty,  thirty,  or 
twenty-five  per  cent,  on  the  liabilities  which  they  have  pur- 
chased, and  in  this  way  contrive  to  lose  nothing. 

After  the  failure  is  declared,  the  house  in  which  a  few  bags  of 
money  yet  remain  from  the  pillage  is  more  or  less  hermetically 
sealed.  Happy  the  merchant  who  can  effect  an  entrance  by  the 
window,  the  roof,  the  cellar,  or  a  hole  in  the  wall,  and  secure  a 
bag  to  swell  his  share  !  When  things  have  come  to  this  pass, 
this  Beresina,  where  the  cry  of  "  Each  for  himself"  has  been 
raised,  it  is  hard  to  say  what  is  legal  or  illegal,  true  or  false, 
honest  or  dishonest.  A  creditor  is  thought  a  clever  fellow  if 
he  "covers  himself; "  that  is  to  say,  if  he  secures  himself  at 
the  expense  of  the  rest.  All  France  once  rang  with  discussion 
of  a  prodigious  failure,  which  took  place  in  a  certain  city 
where  there  was  a  Court-Royal ;  the  magistrates  therein  being 
all  personally  interested  in  the  case  arrayed  their  shoulders  in 
waterproof  cloaks  so  heavy  that  the  mantle  of  justice  was 
worn  into  holes,  on  which  grounds  it  was  necessary  to  transfer 
the  affair  into  another  court.  There  was  no  registrar,  no 
agent,  no  final  judgment  possible  in  the  bankrupt's  own 
district. 

In  Paris  these  commercial  quicksands  are  so  thoroughly  well 
appreciated  that  every  merchant,  however  much  time  he  may 
have  on  his  hands,  accepts  the  loss  as  an  uninsured  accident ; 
and,  unless  he  is  involved  for  some  very  large  sum,  passes  the 
matter  to  the  wrong  side  of  his  profit  and  loss  account.  He 
is  not  so  foolish  as  to  waste  time  over  wasted  money;  he  pre- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  301 

fers  to  keep  his  own  pot  boiling.  As  for  the  little  trader, 
hard  put  to  it  to  pay  his  monthly  accounts,  and  tied  to  the 
narrow  round  of  his  own  business,  tedious  law  proceedings, 
involving  a  heavy  initial  outlay,  scare  him  ;  he  gives  up  the 
attempt  to  see  through  the  matter,  follows  the  example  of  the 
great  merchant,  and  makes  up  his  mind  to  his  loss.  Whole- 
sale merchants  do  not  file  their  schedule  in  these  days;  they 
liquidate  by  private  arrangement ;  their  creditors  take  what  is 
offered  them,  and  give  a  receipt  in  full ;  a  plan  which  saves 
publicity,  and  the  delays  of  the  law,  and  solicitors'  fees,  and 
depreciation  of  stock  consequent  on  a  sudden  realization.  It 
is  a  common  belief  that  it  pays  better  to  have  a  private  arrange- 
ment than  to  force  the  estate  into  bankruptcy,  so  private 
arrangements  are  more  frequent  than  failures  in  Paris. 

The  second  act  of  the  drama  is  intended  to  prove  that  a 
trustee  is  incorruptible ;  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  attempt 
at  collusion  between  them  and  the  debtor.  The  audience, 
who  have  most  of  them  been  at  some  time  cast  for  the  part  of 
trustees  themselves,  know  that  a  trustee  is  another  name  for  a 
creditor  whose  claims  are  "covered."  He  listens,  and  be- 
lieves as  much  as  he  pleases,  till,  after  three  months  spent  in 
investigating  liabilities  and  assets,  the  day  comes  when  com- 
position is  offered  and  accepted.  Then  the  provisional  trus- 
tees read  a  little  report  for  the  assembled  creditors.  The 
following  is  a  general  formula : 

"  Gentlemen  : — The  total  amount  owing  to  us  was  one 
million.  We  have  dismantled  our  man  like  a  stranded  frigate. 
The  sale  of  old  iron,  timber,  and  copper  has  brought  in  three 
hundred  thousand  francs,  the  assets  therefore  amount  to  thirty 
per  cent,  of  the  liabilities.  In  our  joy  at  finding  this  sum, 
when  our  debtor  might  have  left  us  a  bare  hundred  thousand 
francs,  we  proclaim  him  to  be  an  Aristides.  We  vote  him 
crowns  and  a  premium  by  way  of  encouragement !  We  pro- 
pose to  leave  him  his  assets,  and  to  give  him  ten  or  a  dozen 


302  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

years  in  which  to  pay  us  the  dividend  of  fifty  per  cent.,  which 
he  condescends  to  promise  us.  Here  is  the  concordat,  walk  up 
to  the  desk  and  put  your  names  to  it !  " 

At  these  words  the  happy  creditors  fall  on  each  other's 
necks  and  congratulate  one  another.  When  the  concordat  has 
been  ratified  by  the  Tribunal  the  merchant's  assets  are  put  at 
his  disposition,  and  he  begins  business  again  as  if  nothing  had 
happene'd.  He  is  at  liberty  to  fail  once  more  over  the  pay- 
ment of  the  promised  dividends — a  sort  of  great-grandchild 
of  a  failure,  which  not  seldom  appears  like  an  infant  borne 
by  a  mother  nine  months  after  she  had  married  her  daughter. 

If  the  concordat  is  not  accepted,  the  creditors  forthwith 
make  a  final  appointment  of  trustees.  They  resort  to  extreme 
measures,  and  band  themselves  together  to  exploit  the  debtor's 
property  and  business ;  they  lay  their  hands  on  everything  he 
has  or  may  have,  his  reversionary  rights  in  the  property  of 
father  and  mother,  uncles  and  aunts,  and  the  like.  This  is  a 
desperate  remedy  found  by  a  "  union  of  the  creditors." 

If  a  man  fails  in  business,  therefore,  there  are  two  ways 
open  to  him  :  by  the  first  method,  he  takes  things  into  his 
own  hands,  and  means  to  recover  himself;  in  the  second, 
having  fallen  into  the  water,  he  is  content  to  go  to  the  bot- 
tom. Pillerault  knew  the  difference  well.  He  was  of  Ragon's 
opinion,  that  it  was  as  hard  to  issue  from  the  first  experience 
with  clean  hands  as  to  emerge  from  the  second  a  wealthy 
man.  He  counseled  surrender  at  discretion,  and  betook  him- 
self to  the  most  upright  attorney  on  'Change,  asking  him  to 
conduct  the  liquidation  and  to  put  the  proceeds  at  the  dispo- 
sition of  the  creditors.  The  law  requires  that  the  creditors 
should  make  an  allowance  for  the  support  of  the  debtor  and 
his  family  while  the  drama  is  in  progress.  Pillerault  gave 
notice  to  the  registrar  that  he  himself  would  maintain  his 
niece  and  nephew. 

Du  Til  let  had  planned  everything  with  a  view  to  prolong- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  303 

ing  the  agony  of  his  old  master's  failure,  and  in  the  following 
manner.  Time  is  so  valuable  in  Paris,  that,  though  there  are 
usually  two  trustees  appointed,  one  only  acts  in  the  case;  the 
other  is  nominated  for  form's  sake  ;  he  approves  the  proceed- 
ings, like  the  second  notary  in  a  notarial  deed;  and  the  active 
trustee  as  often  as  not  leaves  the  work  to  the  attorney  em- 
ployed by  the  bankrupt.  By  these  means  a  failure  of  the  first 
kind  is  conducted  so  vigorously  that  everything  is  patched 
up,  fixed,  settled,  and  arranged  during  the  minimum  time  re- 
quired by  the  legal  procedure.  In  a  hundred  days  the  registrar 
might  repeat  the  cold-blooded  epigram  of  the  minister  who 
announced  that  "Order  reigns  in  Warsaw." 

Du  Tillet  meant  to  make  an  end  of  Cesar,  commercially 
speaking.  So  the  names  of  the  trustees  appointed  through 
his  influence  had  an  ominous  sound  for  Pillerault.  M. 
Bidault,  otherwise  Gigonnet,  the  principal  creditor,  was  to  do 
nothing.  Molineux,  the  fidgety  little  old  person  who  had 
lost  nothing,  was  to  do  everything.  Du  Tillet  had  thrown 
this  noble  corpse  of  a  business  to  the  little  jackal  to  worry 
before  he  devoured  it. 

Little  Molineux  went  home  after  the  meeting  of  creditors, 
at  which  the  trustees  were  appointed,  "honored  "  (so  he  put 
it)  "  by  the  suffrages  of  his  fellow-citizens,"  and  as  happy  in 
the  prospect  of  domineering  over  Birotteau  as  an  urchin  who 
has  an  insect  to  torment.  The  owner  of  house-property,  being 
a  stickler  for  the  law,  bought  a  copy  of  the  "  Code  of  Com- 
merce," and  asked  du  Tillet  to  give  him  the  benefit  of  his 
lights.  Luckily,  Joseph  Lebas,  forewarned  by  Pillerault,  had, 
at  the  outset,  obtained  a  sagacious  and  benevolent  registrar, 
and  Gobenheim-Keller  (on  whom  du  Tillet  had  fixed  his 
choice)  was  replaced  by  M.  Camusot,  an  assistant  judge,  and 
Pillerault's  landlord,  a  Liberal,  and  a  rich  silk  merchant, 
spoken  of  as  an  honorable  man. 

One  of  the  most  dreadful  scenes  in  Cesar's  life  was  his  en- 
forced conference  with  little  Molineux ;  the  creature  whom 


304  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

he  had  looked  upon  as  such  a  nullity  had  now,  by  a  legal 
fiction,  become  Cesar  Birotteau.  There  was  no  help  for  it ; 
so,  accompanied  by  his  uncle,  he  climbed  the  six  flights  of 
stairs  in  the  Cour  Batave,  reached  the  old  man's  dismal  room, 
and  confronted  his  guardian,  his  quasi  judge,  the  man  who 
represented  the  body  of  his  creditors. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  Pillerault  asked  on  the  stairs, 
hearing  a  groan  from  Cesar. 

"  Oh  !  uncle,  you  do  not  know  what  kind  of  a  man  this 
Molineux  is." 

"I  have  seen  him  at  the  Cafe  David  these  fifteen  years; 
he  plays  a  game  of  dominoes  there  of  an  evening  now  and 
then.     That  is  why  I  came  with  you." 

Molineux  was  prodigiously  civil  to  Pillerault,  and  his  man- 
ner toward  the  bankrupt  was  contemptuously  patronizing. 
The  little  old  man  had  thought  out  his  course,  studied  his  be- 
havior down  to  the  minutest  details,  and  his  ideas  were  ready 
prepared. 

"What  information  do  you  want?"  asked  Pillerault. 
"None  of  the  claims  are  disputed." 

"Oh  !  the  claims  are  all  in  order,"  said  little  Molineux; 
"  they  are  all  verified.  The  creditors  are  serious  and  bo?i&- 
fide  !  But  there's  the  law,  sir  ;  there's  the  law  !  The  bank- 
rupt's expenditure  is  out  of  proportion  to  his  means.  It  ap- 
pears that  the  ball " 

"At  which  you  were  an  invited  guest,"  put  in  the  adroit 
Pillerault. 

"  Cost  nearly  sixty  thousand  francs !  At  any  rate,  that 
amount  was  spent  on  the  occasion,  and  the  debtor's  capital  at 
the  time  only  amounted  to  a  hundred  and  some  odd  thousand 
francs  !  There  is  warrant  sufficient  for  bringing  the  matter 
before  a  registrar-extraordinary,  as  a  case  of  bankruptcy  caused 
by  serious  mismanagement." 

"Is  that  your  opinion?"  asked  Pillerault,  who  noticed 
Birotteau's  despondency  at  those  words. 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  305 

"  Sir,  the  said  Birotteau  was  a  municipal  officer,  that  makes 
a  difference " 

"You  did  not  send  for  us,  I  suppose,  to  tell  us  that  the 
case  was  to  be  transferred  to  a  criminal  court?"  said  Pille- 
rault.  "  The  whole  Cafe  David  would  laugh  this  evening  at 
your  conduct." 

The  little  old  man  seemed  to  stand  in  some  awe  of  the 
opinion  of  the  Cafe  David  ;  he  gave  Pillerault  a  scared  look. 
He  had  reckoned  upon  dealing  with  Birotteau  alone,  and  had 
promised  himself  that  he  would  pose  as  sovereign  lord  and 
Jupiter.  He  had  meant  to  strike  terror  into  Birotteau's  soul 
by  the  thunderbolts  of  a  formal  indictment,  to  brandish  the 
axe  above  his  head,  to  enjoy  the  spectacle  of  his  anguish  and 
alarm,  and  then  to  relent  at  the  prayer  of  his  victim,  and  send 
him  away  with  eternal  gratitude  in  his  soul.  But,  instead  of 
the  insect,  he  was  confronted  with  this  business-like  old 
sphinx. 

"  There  is  nothing  whatever  to  laugh  at,  sir !  "  said  he. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  returned  Pillerault.  "You  are  con- 
sulting Monsieur  Claparon  pretty  freely  ;  you  are  neglecting 
the  interests  of  the  other  creditors  to  obtain  a  decision  that 
you  have  preferential  claims.  Now  I,  as  a  creditor,  can  in- 
tervene.    The  registrar  is  there." 

"Sir,"  said  Molineux,  "I  am  incorruptible." 

"  I  know  you  are,"  said  Pillerault ;  "  you  are  only  getting 
yourself  out  of  the  scrape,  as  the  saying  is.  You  are  shrewd  ; 
you  have  done  as  you  did  in  the  case  of  that  tenant  of 
yours " 

"  Oh  !  sir,  my  lawsuit  in  the  matter  of  the  Rue  Montorgueil 
is  not  decided  yet !  "  cried  the  trustee,  slipping  back  into  the 
landlord  at  the  word,  just  as  the  cat  who  became  a  woman 
pounced  upon  the  mouse.  "A  new  issue,  as  they  say,  has 
been  raised.  It  is  not  a  sub-tenancy ;  he  holds  direct,  and 
the  scamp  says  now  that  as  he  paid  his  rent  a  year  in  advance. 
and  there  is  only  a  year  to  run  "  (at  this  point  Pillerault  gave 
20 


306  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

Cesar  a  glance  which  recommended  the  closest  attention  to 
what  should  follow),  "and  the  year's  rent  being  prepaid, 
he  might  clear  his  furniture  out  of  the  premises.  So  there 
is  a  new  lawsuit.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  ought  to  look  after 
my  guarantees  until  I  am  paid  in  full ;  there  may  be  repairs 
for  which  the  tenant  ought  to  pay." 

"But  you  cannot  distrain  except  for  rent,"  remarked 
Pillerault. 

"  And  accessories !  "  cried  Molineux,  attacked  in  the  centre. 
"The  article  in  the  Code  is  interpreted  by  the  light  of  de- 
cisions ;  there  are  precedents.  The  law,  however,  certainly 
wants  mending  in  this  respect.  At  this  moment  I  am  drafting 
a  petition  to  his  lordship  the  keeper  of  the  seals  concerning 
the  hiatus.  It  would  become  the  Government  to  consider 
the  interests  of  owners  of  property.  The  State  depends  upon 
us,  for  we  bear  the  brunt  of  the  taxes." 

"You  are  well  qualified  to  enlighten  the  Government," 
said  Pillerault;  "but  on  what  point  in  this  business  of  ours 
can  we  throw  any  light  for  you?  " 

"  I  want  to  know,"  said  Molineux  with  imperious  emphasis, 
"whether  Monsieur  Birotteau  has  received  any  money  from 
Monsieur  Popinot." 

"No,  sir,"  answered  Birotteau.  A  discussion  followed  as 
to  Birotteau's  interest  in  the  firm  of  Popinot,  in  the  course  of 
which  it  was  decided  that  Popinot  had  a  right  to  demand  the 
repayment  of  his  advances  in  full  without  putting  in  his  claim 
under  the  bankruptcy  as  one  of  Birotteau's  creditors  for  the 
half  of  the  expenses  of  starting  his  business,  which  Birotteau 
ought  to  have  paid.  Gradually,  under  Pillerault's  handling, 
Molineux  became  more  and  more  civil,  a  symptom  which 
proved  that  he  set  no  little  store  on  the  opinion  of  the  fre- 
quenters of  the  Cafe  David.  Before  the  interview  ended  he 
was  condoling  with  Birotteau,  and  asked  him  no  less  than 
Pillerault  to  share  his  humble  dinner.  If  the  ex-perfumer 
had  gone  by  himself,   he  would   perhaps   have   exasperated 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  307 

Molineux,  and  brought  rancor  into  the  business ;  and  now,  as 
at  some  other  times,  old  Pillerault  played  the  part  of  guardian 
angel. 

One  horrible  form  of  torture  the  law  inflicts  upon  bank- 
rupts :  they  are  bound  to  appear  in  person  with  the  provisional 
trustees  and  the  registrar  at  the  meeting  of  creditors  which  de- 
cides their  fate.  For  a  man  who  can  rise  above  it,  as  for  the 
merchant  who  is  seeking  his  revenge,  the  dismal  ceremony  is 
not  very  formidable ;  but  for  any  one  like  Cesar  the  whole 
thing  is  an  agony  only  paralleled  by  the  last  day  in  the  con- 
demned cell.  Pillerault  did  all  in  his  power  to  make  that  day 
endurable  to  his  nephew. 

Molineux's  proceedings,  sanctioned  by  the  bankrupt,  had 
been  on  this  wise :  The  lawsuit  concerning  the  mortgage  on 
the  property  in  the  Faubourg  du  Temple  had  been  gained  in 
the  Court  of  Appeal.  The  trustees  decided  to  sell  the  land, 
and  Cesar  made  no  objections.  Du  Tillet,  knowing  that  the 
Government  meant  to  construct  a  canal  to  open  communica- 
tion between  Saint-Denis  and  the'  upper  Seine,  and  that  the 
canal  would  pass  through  the  Faubourg  du  Temple,  bought 
Cesar's  property  for  seventy  thousand  francs.  Cesar's  rights 
in  the  Madeleine  building  land  were  abandoned  to  M.  Cla- 
paron,  on  condition  that  he  on  his  side  should  make  no  de- 
mand for  half  the  registration  fees,  which  Cesar  should  have 
paid  on  the  completion  of  the  contract ;  it  was  arranged  that 
Claparon  should  take  over  the  land  and  pay  for  it,  and  receive 
the  dividend  in  the  bankruptcy  which  was  due  to  the  vendors. 

The  perfumer's  interest  in  the  firm  of  Popinot  &  Company 
was  sold  to  the  said  Popinot  for  forty-eight  thousand  francs. 
Celestin  Crevel  bought  the  business  as  a  going  concern  for 
fifty-seven  thousand  francs,  together  with  the  lease  of  the 
premises,  the  stock,  the  fittings,  the  proprietary  rights  in  the 
Pate  des  Sultanes  and  Carminative  Toilet  Lotion,  a  twelve 
years'  lease  of  the  factory  and  the  plant  being  included  in  the 
sale. 


308  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

The  liquid  assets  reached  a  total  of  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
five  thousand  francs,  to  which  the  trustees  added  seventy 
thousand  francs  from  the  liquidation  of  "  that  unlucky  fellow 
Roguin."  Two  hundred  and  sixty-five  thousand  francs  in 
all.  The  liabilities  amounted  to  about  four  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  francs,  so  that  there  would  be  a  dividend  of  more 
than  fifty  per  cent. 

A  liquidation  is  something  like  a  chemical  process,  from 
which  the  clever  insolvent  merchant  endeavors  to  emerge  as  a 
saturated  solution.  Birotteau,  distilled  entirely  in  this  retort, 
yielded  a  result  which  infuriated  du  Tillet.  Du  Tillet  thought 
that  there  would  be  a  dishonoring  bankruptcy,  and  behold  a 
liquidation  highly  creditable  to  his  man.  He  cared  very  little 
about  the  pecuniary  gain,  for  he  would  have  the  building  land 
by  the  Madeleine  without  opening  his  purse;  he  wished  to  see 
the  poor  merchant  disgraced,  ruined,  and  humbled  in  the  dust. 
The  meeting  of  creditors  would  doubtless  carry  out  the  per- 
fumer in  triumph  on  their  shoulders. 

As  Birotteau's  courage  returned,  his  uncle,  like  a  wise 
physician,  gradually  told  him  the  details  of  the  proceedings 
in  bankruptcy.  These  rigorous  measures  were  so  many  heavy 
blows.  A  merchant  cannot  but  feel  depressed  when  the 
things  on  which  he  has  spent  so  much  money  and  so  much 
thought  are  sold  for  so  little.  He  was  petrified  with  astonish- 
ment at  the  tidings  which  Pillerault  brought. 

"  Fifty-seven  thousand  francs  for  the  Queen  of  Roses  ! 
Why,  the  stock  is  worth  ten  thousand  francs  !  We  spent 
forty  thousand  francs  on  the  rooms  and  the  fittings;  the 
plant,  the  moulds  and  boilers  over  at  the  factory  cost  thirty 
thousand  francs  !  Why,  if  the  things  are  sold  for  half  their 
value,  there  is  the  worth  of  ten  thousand  francs  in  the  store, 
and  the  Pate  des  Sultanes  and  the  Lotion  are  as  good  as  a 
farm  !  " 

Poor  ruined  Cesar's  jeremiads  did  not  alarm  Pillerault 
very  much.      The   old     merchant    took    them    much   as  a 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  309 

horse  takes  a  shower  of  rain  ;  but  when  he  came  to  talk  of 
the  meeting  of  creditors,  Cesar's  gloomy  silence  frightened 
him.  Those  who  understand  the  weakness  and  vanity  of 
human  nature  in  every  social  sphere  will  understand  that  for 
an  ex-judge  to  return  as  a  bankrupt  to  the  Palais  where  he  had 
sat  was  a  ghastly  form  of  torture.  He  must  receive  his  en- 
emies in  the  very  place  where  he  had  been  so  often  thanked 
for  his  services  ;  he,  Birotteau,  whose  views  as  to  bankruptcy 
were  so  well  known  in  Paris;  he  who  had  said,  "A  man  who 
files  his  schedule  is  an  honest  man  still,  but  by  the  time  he 
comes  out  of  a  meeting  of  creditors  he  is  a  rogue. ' '  His  uncle 
watched  for  favorable  opportunities,  and  tried  to  accustom 
him  to  the  idea  of  appearing  before  his  creditors  assembled,  as 
the  law  requires.  This  condition  was  killing  Birotteau.  His 
dumb  resignation  made  a  deep  impression  on  Pillerault,  who, 
through  the  thin  partition  wall,  used  to  hear  him  cry  at  night, 
"  Never  !  never  !     I  will  die  sooner." 

Pillerault,  so  strong  himself  by  reason  of  his  simple  life, 
understood  weakness.  He  made  up  his  mind  to  spare  Birot- 
teau the  anguish  to  which  his  nephew  might  succumb,  the 
dreadful  and  inevitable  meeting  with  his  creditors  !  The  law 
is  precise,  positive,  and  unflinching  in  this  respect;  the  debtor 
who  refuses  to  appear  is  liable  on  these  grounds  alone  to  have 
his  case  transferred  out  of  the  commercial  into  the  criminal 
court.  But  if  the  law  compels  the  appearance  of  the  debtor, 
it  exercises  no  such  constraint  upon  the  creditors. 

A  meeting  of  creditors  is  a  mere  formality  except  in  certain 
cases;  when,  for  example,  a  rogue  is  to  be  ousted,  or  the 
creditors  unite  to  refuse  the  dividend  offered,  or  cannot  agree 
among  themselves  because  some  of  their  number  are  privileged 
to  the  prejudice  of  the  rest,  or  the  dividend  offered  is  out- 
rageously small,  and  the  bankrupt  is  doubtful  of  obtaining  a 
majority  to  carry  the  resolution.  But  when  the  estate  has 
been  honestly  liquidated,  or  when  a  rascally  debtor  has 
squared  everybody,  the  meeting  is  only  a  matter  of  form.     So 


310  CESAR   BIROTTEAU. 

Pillerault  went  round  to  the  creditors  one  after  another  and 
asked  each  to  empower  his  attorney  to  represent  him  on  that 
occasion.  Every  creditor,  du  Tillet  excepted,  was  sorry  for 
Birotteau  now  that  he  had  been  brought  low.  All  of  them 
knew  how  he  had  behaved,  how  well  his  books  had  been  kept, 
and  how  straightforward  he  had  been  in  the  matter.  They 
were  well  pleased  to  find  not  one  "gay"  creditor  among 
their  number.  Molineux,  as  agent  in  the  first  place,  and 
afterward  as  trustee,  had  found  all  that  the  poor  man  pos- 
sessed, down  to  the  print  of  "Hero  and  Leander "  which 
Popinot  had  given  him.  Birotteau  had  not  taken  away  such 
small  matters  as  his  gold-buckles,  his  pin,  and  the  two  watches, 
which  even  an  honest  man  might  not  have  scrupled  to  keep. 
This  touching  obedience  to  the  law  made  a  great  sensation  in 
commercial  circles.  Birotteau's  enemies  represented  these 
things  as  conclusive  signs  of  the  man's  stupidity  ;  but  sensible 
people  saw  them  in  their  true  light,  as  a  magnificent  excess  of 
honesty.  In  two  months  a  change  had  been  brought  about  in 
opinion  on  'Change.  The  most  indifferent  admitted  that  this 
failure  was  one  of  the  greatest  curiosities  of  commerce  ever 
heard  of.  So  when  the  creditors  knew  that  they  were  to 
receive  sixty  per  cent.,  they  agreed  to  do  all  that  Pillerault 
asked  of  them.  There  are  but  few  attorneys  practicing  at  the 
Tribunal ;  so  several  of  the  creditors  deputed  the  same  man  to 
represent  them,  and  the  whole  formidable  assemblage  was 
reduced  to  three  attorneys,  Ragon,  the  two  trustees,  and  the 
registrar. 

"Cesar,  you  can  go  without  fear  to  your  meeting  to-day; 
you  will  find  nobody  there,"  Pillerault  said  on  the  morning 
of  that  memorable  day. 

M.  Ragon  wished  to  go  with  his  debtor.  At  the  sound  of 
the  thin  elderly  voice  of  the  previous  owner  of  the  Queen  of 
Roses,  all  the  color  left  his  successor's  face ;  but  the  kind  little 
old  man  held  out  his  arms,  and  Birotteau  went  to  him  likr  a 
child  to  his  father,   and   both  shed  tears.      This   jindiilge-.trg 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  311 

goodness  put   fresh   heart   into  Cesar,   and  he   followed    his 
uncle  to  the  cab. 

Punctually  at  half-past  three  they  arrived  in  the  Cloitre 
Saint-Merri,  where  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce  then  held  its 
sessions.  The  Salle  des  Faillites  was  deserted.  The  day  and 
the  hour  had  been  fixed  to  that  end  with  the  approbation  of 
the  trustees  and  the  registrar.  The  attorneys  were  there  on 
behalf  of  their  clients ;  there  was  nothing  to  fill  Cesar's  soul 
with  dread;  and  yet  the  poor  man  could  not  enter  M.  Camu- 
sot's  room  (which  had  once  been  his)  without  deep  emotion, 
and  he  shuddered  as  he  went  through  the  Salle  des  Faillites. 

"It  is  cold,"  said  M.  Camusot,  turning  to  Birotteau ; 
"these  gentlemen  will  not  be  sorry  to  stay  here  instead  of 
being  frozen  in  the  Salle."  (He  would  not  say  the  Salle  des 
Faillites.*)     "Seat  yourselves,  gentlemen." 

Every  one  sat  down;  the  registrar  put  Cesar,  still  confused, 
into  his  own  armchair.  Then  trustees  and  attorneys  signed 
their  names. 

"In  consideration  of  the  abandonment  of  your  estate," 
said  Camusot,  again  addressing  Birotteau,  "  your  creditors 
unanimously  agree  to  forego  the  remainder  of  their  claims ; 
your  concordat  is  couched  in  language  which  may  soften  your 
regrets ;  your  attorney  will  have  it  confirmed  by  the  Tribunal 
at  once.  So  you  are  discharged.  All  the  judges  of  the  Tri- 
bunal have  felt  sorry  that  you  should  be  placed  in  such  a 
position,  dear  Monsieur  Birotteau,  without  being  surprised  by 
your  courage,"  Camusot  went  on,  taking  Birotteau's  hands, 
"  and  there  is  no  one  but  appreciates  your  integrity.  Through 
your  disasters  you  have  shown  yourself  worthy  of  the  position 
which  you  held  here.  I  have  been  in  business  these  twenty 
years,  and  this  is  the  second  time  that  I  have  seen  a  merchant 
rise  in  public  esteem  '  after  his  failure.'  " 

Birotteau  grasped    the  registrar's  hand   and   squeezed    it. 
There   were  tears  in  his  eyes.      Camusot  asked   him   what  he 

*  Bankrupts'  Hall. 


312  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

meant  to   do,  and  Birotteau  answered  that  he  was  going  to 
work,  and  that  he  intended  to  pay  his  creditors  in  full. 

"  If  you  should  be  in  want  of  a  few  thousand  francs  to 
carry  out  your  noble  design,  you  will  always  find  them  if  you 
come  to  me,"  said  Camusot ;  "I  would  give  them  with  great 
pleasure  to  see  a  thing  not  often  seen  in  Paris." 

Pillerauk,  Ragon,  and  Birotteau  left  the  Tribunal. 

"  Well,  was  it  so  bad  after  all  ?  "  said  Pillerault,  when  they 
stood  outside. 

"I  can  see  your  hand  in  it,  uncle,"  said  Cesar,  deeply 
touched. 

"  And  now  that  you  are  on  your  feet  again,  come  and  see 
my  nephew,"  said  Ragon  ;  "it  is  only  a  step  to  the  Rue  des 
Cinq-Diamants." 

It  was  with  a  cruel  pang  that  Cesar  looked  up  and  saw  Con- 
stance sitting  at  her  desk  in  a  room  on  the  low,  dark  floor 
above  the  store  ;  dark,  for  a  signboard  outside,  on  which  the 
name  "A.  Popinot  "  was  painted,  cutoff  one-third  of  the 
light  from  the  window. 

"  Here  is  one  of  Alexander's  lieutenants."  said  Birotteau, 
pointing  to  the  sign  with  the  forced  mirth  of  misfortune. 

This  constrained  gaiety,  the  naive  expression  of  Birotteau's 
old  belief  in  his  superior  talents,  made  Ragon  shudder,  de- 
spite his  seventy  years.  But  Cesar's  cheerfulness  broke  down 
when  his  wife  brought  in  letters  for  Popinot  to  sign,  and  his 
face  turned  white  in  spite  of  himself. 

"Good-evening,  dear."  she  said,  smiling  at  him. 

"  I  need  not  ask  whether  you  are  comfortable  here,"  Cesar 
said,  and  he  looked  at  Popinot. 

"I  might  be  in  my  own  son's  house,"  she  said,  and  her 
husband  was  struck  by  the  tender  expression  which  crossed 
her  face. 

Birotteau  embraced  Popinot,  saying,  "I  have  just  lost  for 
ever  the  right  to  call  you  my  son." 

"Let  us  hope,"  said  Popinot,     "Your  Oil  is  going  well, 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  313 

thanks  to  our  efforts  in  the  newspapers,  and  thanks  to  Gaud- 
issart,  who  has  been  all  over  and  flooded  France  with  placards 
and  prospectuses.  He  is  having  prospectuses  in  German 
printed  at  Strasbourg,  and  is  just  about  to  descend  on  Ger- 
many like  an  invasion.  We  have  orders  for  three  thousand 
gross." 

"  Three  thousand  gross  !  "  echoed  Cesar. 

"  And  I  have  bought  some  land  in  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Marceau,  not  badly ;  a  factory  is  to  be  built  there.  I  shall 
keep  on   at   the  other  place   in   the   Faubourg  du   Temple." 

"  With  a  little  help,  wife,"  Birotteau  said  in  Constance's 
ear,  "  we  shall  pull  through." 

From  that  memorable  day  Cesar  and  his  wife  and  daughter 
understood  one  another.  Poor  clerk,  as  he  was,  he  had  set 
himself  a  task  which,  if  not  impossible,  was  gigantic  ;  he 
would  pay  his  creditors  in  full  !  The  three,  united  by  a 
common  bond  of  fierce  independence,  grew  miserly  and 
denied  themselves  everything;  every  centime  was  consecrated 
to  this  end.  Cesarine,  with  one  object  in  •her  mind,  threw 
herself  into  her  work  with  a  young  girl's  devotion.  She  spent 
her  nights  in  devising  schemes  for  increasing  the  prosperity 
of  the  house  ;  she  invented  designs  for  materials,  and  brought 
her  inborn  business  faculties  into  play.  Her  employers  were 
obliged  to  check  her  ardor  for  work,  and  rewarded  her  with 
presents,  but  she  declined  the  ornaments  and  trinkets  which 
they  offered  ;  it  was  money  that  she  preferred.  Every  month 
she  took  her  salary,  her  little  earnings,  to  her  Uncle  Pillerault, 
and  Cesar  and  Mme.  Birotteau  did  the  same.  All  three  of  them 
recognized  their  lack  of  ability,  and  shrank  from  assuming"  the 
responsible  task  of  investing  their  savings.  So  the  uncle  went 
into  business  again,  and  studied  the  money  market.  At  a 
later  time  it  was  known  that  Jules  Desmarets  and  Joseph 
Lebas  had  helped  him  with  their  counsel ;  both  had  zealously 
looked  for  safe  investments. 

Birotteau,  living  in  his  uncle's  house,  did  not  even  dare  to 


314  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

ask  any  questions  about  the  uses  to  which  the  family  savings 
were  put.  He  went  through  the  streets  with  a  bent  head, 
shrinking  from  all  eyes,  downcast,  nervous,  blind  to  all  that 
passed.     It  vexed  him  that  he  must  wear  fine  cloth. 

"At  any  rate,  I  am  not  eating  my  creditors'  bread,"  he 
said,  with  an  angelic  glance  at  the  kind  old  man.  "Your 
bread  is  sweet  "  (he  went  on),  "  although  you  give  it  me  out 
of  pity,  when  I  think  that,  thanks  to  this  sacred  charity,  I  am 
not  robbing  my  creditors  of  my  earnings." 

The  merchants  who  met  the  Birotteau  of  those  days  could 
not  see  a  trace  of  the  Birotteau  whom  they  used  to  know. 
Vast  thoughts  were  awakened  in  indifferent  beholders  at  sight 
of  that  face  so  dark  with  the  blackest  misery,  of  the  man  who 
had  never  been  thoughtful  so  bowed  down  beneath  the  weight 
of  a  thought ;  it  was  a  revelation  of  the  depths,  in  that  this 
being,  dwelling  on  so  ordinary  a  human  level,  could  have  had 
so  far  to  fall.  To  the  man  who  would  fain  be  wiped  out  comes 
no  extinction.  Shallow  natures  who  lack  a  conscience,  and 
are  incapable  of*much  feeling,  can  never  furnish  forth  the 
tragedy  of  man  and  fate.  Religion  alone  sets  its  peculiar  seal 
on  those  who  have  sounded  these  depths ;  they  believe  in 
a  future  and  in  a  Providence ;  a  certain  light  shines  in  them, 
a  look  of  holy  resignation,  blended  with  hope,  which  touches 
those  who  behold  it ;  they  know  all  that  they  have  lost,  like 
the  exiled  angel  weeping  at  the  gates  of  heaven.  A  bankrupt 
cannot  show  his  face  on  'Change;  and  Cesar,  thrust  out  from 
the  society  of  honest  men,  was  like  the  angel  sighing  for 
pardon. 

For  fourteen  months  Cesar  refused  all  amusements;  his 
mind  was  full  of  religious  thoughts,  inspired  by  his  fall.  Sure 
though  he  was  of  the  Ragons'  friendship,  it  was  impossible  to 
induce  him  to  dine  with  them ;  nor  would  he  visit  the  Lebas, 
nor  the  Matifats,  the  Protez  and  Chiffrevilles,  nor  even  M. 
Vauquelin,  though  all  were  anxious  to  show  their  admiration 
for  Cesar's  behavior.     He  would  rather  be  alone  in  his  own 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  315 

room,  where  he  could  not  meet  the  eyes  of  any  one  to  whom 
he  owed  money ;  and  the  most  cordial  kindness  on  the  part 
of  his  friends  recalled  him  to  a  sense  of  the  bitterness  of  his 
position. 

Constance  and  Cesarine  went  nowhere.  On  Sundays  and 
holidays,  the  only  times  when  they  were  free,  the  two  women 
went  first  to  mass,  and  then  home  with  Cesar  after  the  service. 
Pillerault  used  to  ask  the  Abbe  Loraux  to  come — the  Abbe 
Loraux  who  had  sustained  Cesar  in  his  trouble — and  they  made 
a  family  party.  The  old  hardware  merchant  could  not  but 
approve  his  nephew's  scruples,  his  own  sense  of  commercial 
honor  was  too  keen  ;  and  therefore  his  mind  was  bent  upon 
increasing  the  number  of  people  whom  the  bankrupt  might 
look  in  the  face  with  a  clear  brow. 

In  May,  1821,  the  efforts  of  the  family  thus  struggling  with 
adversity  were  rewarded  by  a  holiday,  contrived  by  the  arbiter 
of  their  destinies.  The  first  Sunday  in  that  month  was  the 
anniversary  of  the  betrothal  of  Cesar  and  Constance.  Pil- 
lerault and  the  Ragons  had  taken  a  little  house  in  the  country 
at  Sceaux,  and  the  old  hardware  dealer  wanted  to  make  a 
festival  of  the  house-warming. 

On  the  Saturday  evening  he  spoke  to  his  nephew.  "  We 
are  going  into  the  country  to-morrow,  Cesar,"  he  said,  "and 
you  must  come,  too." 

Cesar,  who  wrote  a  beautiful  hand,  copied  documents  for 
Derville  and  several  other  lawyers  in  the  evenings,  and  on 
Sundays  (with  a  dispensation  from  the  cure)  he  worked  like  a 


negro. 


"  No,"  he  answered  ;  "  Monsieur  Derville  is  waiting  for  an 
account  of  a  guardianship." 

"  Your  wife  and  daughter  deserve  a  holiday,  and  there  will 
be  no  one  but  our  friends — the  Abbe  Loraux,  the  Ragons, 
and  Popinot  and  his  uncle.     Beside,  I  want  you  to  come." 

Cesar  and  his  wife,  carried  away  by  the  daily  round  of  their 
busy  lives,   had  never    gone    back  to  Sceaux,  though  from 


316  CESAR    BIROTTEAV. 

time  to  time  they  both  had  wished  to  see  the  garden  again, 
and  the  lime-tree  beneath  which  Cesar  had  almost  swooned 
with  joy,  in  the  days  when  he  was  still  an  assistant  at  the 
Queen  of  Roses.  To-day,  when  Popinot  drove  them,  and 
Birotteau  sat  with  Constance  and  their  daughter,  his  wife's 
eyes  turned  to  his  from  time  to  time,  but  the  look  of  intelli- 
gence in  them  drew  no  answering  smile  from  his  lips.  She 
whispered  a  few  words  in  his  ear,  but  a  shake  of  the  head  was 
the  only  response.  The  sweet  expressions  of  tenderness,  un- 
alterable, but  now  forced  somewhat,  brought  no  light  into 
Cesar's  eyes;  his  face  grew  gloomier,  the  tears  which  he  had 
kept  back  began  to  fill  his  eyes.  Twenty  years  ago  he  had 
been  along  this  very  road,  when  he  was  young  and  prosperous 
and  full  of  hope,  the  lover  of  a  girl  as  lovely  as  Cesarine, 
who  was  with  them  now.  Then  he  had  dreamed  of  happiness 
to  come;  to-day  he  saw  his  noble  child's  face,  pale  with  long 
hours  of  work,  and  his  brave  wife,  of  whose  great  beauty 
there  remained  such  traces  as  are  left  to  a  beautiful  city  after 
the  lava  flood  has  poured  over  it.  Of  all  that  had  been,  love 
alone  was  left.  Cesar's  attitude  repressed  the  joy  in  the  girl's 
heart  and  in  Anselme,  the  two  who  now  represented  the  lovers 
of  that  bygone  day. 

"  Be  happy,  children  ;  you  deserve  to  be  happy,"  said  the 
poor  father,  in  heartrending  tones.  "  You  can  love  each 
other  with  no  after-thoughts,"  added  he;  and  as  he  spoke  he 
took  both  his  wife's  hands  in  his  and  kissed  them  with  a  rev- 
erent, admiring  affection  which  touched  her  more  than  the 
brightest  cheerfulness.  Pillerault,  the  Ragons,  the  Abbe 
Loraux,  and  Popinot  the  elder  were  all  waiting  for  them  at 
the  house;  there  was  an  understanding  among  those  five 
kindly  souls,  and  their  manner,  and  looks,  and  words  put 
Cesar  at  his  ease,  for  it  went  to  their  hearts  to  see  him  always 
as  if  on  the  morrow  of  his  failure. 

<;Take  a  walk  in  the  Bois  d'Aulnay,"  said  Pillerault, 
putting    Cesar's   hand   into   that   of  his  wife's.     "  Go   and 


CESAR  B1R0TTEAU.  317 

take  Anselme  and  Cdsarine  with  you,  and  come  back  again  at 
four  o'clock." 

"Poor  things,  we  are  in  the  way,"  said  Mme.  Ragon, 
touched  by  her  debtor's  unfeigned  misery  ;  "he  will  be  very 
happy  before  long." 

"It  is  a  repentance  without  the  sin,"  said  the  Abbe 
Loraux. 

"  He  could  only  have  grown  great  through  misfortune," 
said  the  judge. 

The  power  of  forgetting  is  the  great  secret  of  strong  and 
creative  natures ;  they  forget  after  the  manner  of  nature,  who 
knows  nothing  of  a  past  ;  with  every  hour  she  begins  afresh 
the  constant  mysterious  workings  of  fertility.  But  weak  na- 
tures, like  Birotteau,  take  their  sorrows  into  their  lives  instead 
of  transmuting  them  into  the  axioms  of  experience ;  and, 
steeping  themselves  in  their  troubles,  wear  themselves  out  by 
reverting  daily  to  the  old  unhappiness. 

When  the  two  couples  had  found  the  footpath  which  leads  to 
the  Bois  d'Aulnay,  set  like  a  crown  on  one  of  the  loveliest  of 
the  low  hills  about  Paris;  when  the  Vallee-aux-Loups  lay  below 
them  in  its  enchanting  beauty,  the  bright  day,  the  charm  of 
the  view,  the  fresh  green  leaves  about  them,  and  delicious 
memories  of  that  fairest  day  of  their  youth,  relaxed  the  chords 
which  grief  had  strung  to  resonance  in  Cesar's  soul ;  he  held 
his  wife's  arm  tightly  against  his  beating  heart ;  his  eyes  were 
glazed  no  longer,  a  glad  light  shone  in  them. 

"At  last  I  see  you  again,  my  dear  Cesar,"  Constance  said. 
"  It  seems  to  me  that  we  are  behaving  well  enough  to  allow 
ourselves  a  little  pleasure  from  time  to  time." 

"How  can  I?"  poor  Birotteau  answered.  "Oh!  Con- 
stance, your  love  is  the  one  good  left  to  me.  I  have  lost 
everything,  even  the  confidence  that  I  used  to  have  in  myself. 
I  have  no  heart  left  in  me;  I  want  to  live  long  enough  to  pay 
my  dues  on  earth  before  I  die,  and  that  is  all.  You,  dear, 
who  have  been  wisdom  and  prudence  for  me,  who  saw  things 


318  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

clearly,  you  who  are  not  to  blame,  may  be  glad.  Among  us 
three,  I  am  the  only  guilty  one.  Eighteen  months  ago,  at 
that  unlucky  ball,  I  saw  this  Constance  of  mine,  the  only 
woman  whom  I  have  loved,  more  beautiful  perhaps  than  the 
young  girl  with  whom  I  wandered  along  this  path  twenty  years 
ago,  as  our  children  are  wandering  together  now.  In  less  than 
two  years  I  have  blighted  that  beauty,  my  pride,  and  I  had  a 
right  to  be  proud  of  it.  I  love  you  more  as  I  know  you  better. 
Oh  !  dearest !  "  and  his  tone  gave  the  word  an  eloquence  that 
went  to  his  wife's  heart,  "  if  only  I  might  hear  you  scold  me, 
instead  of  soothing  my  distress." 

"I  did  not  think  it  possible,"  she  said,  "  that  a  woman 
could  love  her  husband  more  after  twenty  years  of  life  to- 
gether." 

For  a  moment  Cesar  forgot  all  his  troubles  at  the  words 
that  brought  such  a  wealth  of  happiness  to  a  heart  like  his.  It 
was  with  something  like  joy  in  his  soul  that  he  went  toward 
their  tree,  which  by  some  chance  had  not  been  cut  down. 
Husband  and  wife  sat  down  beneath  it,  and  watched  Anselme 
and  Cesarine,  who  walked  to  and  fro  on  the  same  plot  of 
grass,  unconscious  of  their  movements,  fancying  perhaps  that 
they  were  still  walking  on  and  on. 

"  Mademoiselle,"  Anselme  was  saying,  "do  you  think  me 
so  base  and  so  greedy  as  to  take  advantage  of  the  fact  that  I 
own  your  father's  interest  in  the  Cephalic  Oil?  I  have  care- 
fully set  aside  his  share  of  the  profits ;  I  am  keeping  them  for 
him.  I  am  adding  interest  to  the  money;  if  there  are  any 
doubtful  debts,  I  pass  them  to  my  own  account.  We  can  only 
belong  to  each  other  when  your  father  has  been  rehabilitated ; 
I  am  trying  with  all  the  strength  that  love  gives  me  to  bring 
that  day  soon." 

He  had  carefully  kept  his  secret  from  Cesarine's  mother ; 
but  the  simplest  lover  is  always  anxious  to  be  great  in  his 
love's  eyes. 

"And  will  it  come  soon  ?"  she  asked. 


CESAR  B7R0TTEAU  319 

"Very  soon,"  said  Popinot. 

The  tone  in  which  the  answer  was  given  was  so  penetrating 
that  the  innocent  and  pure-hearted  girl  held  up  her  forehead 
for  her  lover's  kiss,  fervent  and  respectful,  for  Cesarine's  noble 
nature  had  spoken  so  plainly  in  the  impulse. 

"  Everything  is  going  well,  papa,"  she  said,  with  the  air  of 
one  who  knows  a  great  deal.  "  Be  nice,  and  talk,  and  don't 
look  so  sad  any  longer." 

When  these  four  people,  so  closely  bound  together,  returned 
to  Pillerault's  new  house,  Cesar,  unobservant  though  he  was, 
felt  from  the  Ragons'  altered  manner  that  something  was  im- 
pending. Mme.  Ragon  was  peculiarly  gracious ;  her  look 
and  tone  said  plainly  to  Cesar,  "  We  are  paid." 

After  dinner  the  notary  of  Sceaux  appeared.  Pillerault 
asked  him  to  be  seated,  and  glanced  at  Birotteau,  who  began 
to  suspect  some  surprise,  though  he  did  not  imagine  how 
great  it  would  be.     Pillerault  began — 

"Your  savings  for  eighteen  months,  nephew,  and  those  of 
your  wife  and  daughter  amount  to  twenty  thousand  francs.  I 
received  thirty  thousand  francs  in  the  shape  of  dividend,  so 
we  have  fifty  thousand  francs  to  divide  among  your  creditors. 
Monsieur  Ragon  has  had  thirty  thousand  francs  as  dividend  ; 
so  this  gentleman,  who  is  the  notary  of  Sceaux,  is  about  to 
hand  you  a  receipt  in  full  for  principal  and  interest,  paid 
to  your  friends.  The  rest  of  the  money  is  with  Crottat  for 
Lourdois,  Madame  Madou,  the  builder,  and  the  carpenter, 
and  the  more  pressing  of  your  creditors.  Next  year  we  shall 
see.     One  can  go  a  long  way  with  time  and  patience." 

Birotteau's  joy  cannot  be  described  ;  he  embraced  his  uncle, 
and  shed  tears. 

"  Let  him  wear  his  cross  to-day,"  said  Ragon,  addressing 
the  Abbe  Loraux,  and  the  confessor  fastened  the  red  ribbon 
to  Cesar's  button-hole.  A  score  of  times  that  evening  he 
looked  at  himself  in  the  mirrors  on  the  walls  of  the  sitting- 
room  with  a  delight  which  people  who  believe  themselves  to 


320  CESAR  BIROTIEAU. 

be  superior  would  laugh  at ;  but  these  good-hearted  citizens 
saw  nothing  unnatural  in  it.  The  next  day  Birotteau  went  to 
see  Mme.  Madou. 

"  Oh  !  is  that  you  !  "  she  cried  ;  "  I  did  not  know  you, 
old  man,  you  have  grown  so  gray.  Still,  the  like  of  you 
don't  come  to  grief;  there  are  places  under  Government  for 
you.  I  myself  am  working  as  hard  as  a  poodle  that  turns  a 
spit,  and  deserves  to  be  christened." 

"  But,  madame " 

"Oh,  I'm  not  blaming  you,"  she  said;  "you  had  your 
discharge." 

"I  have  come  to  tell  you  that  I  will  pay  you  the  balance 
to-day,  at  Maitre  Crottat's  office,  and  interest  also " 

"Really?" 

"  You  must  be  there  at  half-past  eleven." 

"There's  honesty  for  you  !  good  measure,  and  thirteen  to 
the  dozen,"  cried  she,  in  outspoken  admiration.  "  Stop,  sir, 
I  do  a  good  trade  with  that  red-haired  youngster  of  yours ;  he 
is  a  nice  young  fellow;  he  lets  me  make  my  profit  without 
haggling  over  the  price,  so  as  to  make  up  to  me  for  the  loss. 
Well,  then,  I  will  give  you  the  receipt ;  keep  your  money, 
poor  old  soul  !  La  Madou  fires  up  like  tinder,  she  hollers 
out,  but  she  has  something  here,"  and  she  tapped  the  most 
ample  cushion  of  live  flesh  ever  known  in  the  Great  Market. 

"Never!"  said  Birotteau,  "the  law  is  explicit;  I  mean 
to  pay  you  in  full." 

"  Then  there  is  no  need  to  keep  on  begging  and  praying 
of  me.  And  to-morrow  at  the  Market  I  will  sound  your 
praises  ;  they  shall  all  know  about  you.  Oh  !  it  is  a  rare 
joke  !  " 

The  worthy  man  went  through  the  same  scene  again  with 
the  house-painter,  Crottat's  father-in-law,  but  with  some  varia- 
tions. It  was  raining.  Cesar  left  his  umbrella  in  a  corner 
by  the  door,  and  the  well-to-do  house-painter,  sitting  at 
breakfast  with  his  wife  in  a  handsomely  furnished  room,  saw 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  321 

the  stream  of  water  trickle  across  the  floor,  and  was  not  too 
considerate. 

"  Halloo,  poor  old  Birotteau,  what  do  you  want  ?  "  he  asked, 
in  the  hard  tone  which  people  use  to  a  tiresome  beggar. 

"  Has  not  your  son-in-law  asked  you,  sir " 

"What?"  Lourdois  broke  in  impatiently.  Some  request 
was  to  follow,  he  thought. 

"  To  go  to  his  office  this  morning  at  half-past  eleven,  to 
give  me  a  receipt  in  full  for  the  balance  of  your  claim  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  that  is  another  thing  !  Just  sit  you  down,  Monsieur 
Birotteau,  and  take  a  bite  with  us " 

"Do  us  the  honor  of  breakfasting  with  us,"  said  Mme. 
Lourdois. 

"  Doing  pretty  well?  "  asked  her  burly  spouse. 

"  No,  sir.  I  have  had  to  lunch  off  a  roll  in  my  office  to 
get  some  money  together,  but  I  hope  in  time  to  repair  the 
wrong  done  to  my  neighbors." 

"Really,  you  are  a  man  of  honor,"  remarked  the  house- 
painter,  as  he  swallowed  a  mouthful  of  bread  and  butter  and 
Strasbourg  pie. 

"And  what  is  Madame  Birotteau  doing?"  asked  Mme. 
Lourdois. 

"  She  is  keeping  the  books  in  Monsieur  Anselme  Popinot's 
counting-house." 

"  Poor  things  !  "  said  Mme.  Lourdois,  in  a  low  voice. 

"  If  you  should  want  me,  come  and  see  me,  my  dear  Mon- 
sieur Birotteau,"  began  Lourdois;   "  I  might  be  of  use " 

"  I  want  you  at  eleven  o'clock,  sir,"  said  Birotteau,  and 
with  that  he  went. 

This  first  result  gave  Birotteau  fresh  courage,  but  it  did  not 
give  him  peace  of  mind.  The  desire  to  redeem  his  character 
perturbed  him  beyond  all  measure.  He  completely  lost  the 
bloom  which  used  to  appear  in  his  face,  his  eyes  grew  dull, 
his  cheeks  hollow.  Old  acquaintances  who  met  him  at  eight 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  or  after  four  in  the  afternoon  on  his 
31 


322  CESAR   BIROTTEAU. 

way  to  and  from  the  Rue  de  l'Oratoire,  saw  a  pale-faced, 
nervous,  white-haired  man,  wearing  the  same  overcoat  which 
he  had  had  at  the  time  of  the  bankruptcy  (for  he  was  as  care- 
ful of  it  as  a  poor  sub-lieutenant  who  economizes  his  uniform). 
Sometimes  they  would  stop  him  in  spite  of  himself,  for  he 
was  quick-sighted,  slinking  home,  keeping  close  to  the  wall 
like  a  thief. 

"People  know  how  you  have  behaved,  my  friend,"  they 
would  say.  "  Everybody  is  sorry  to  see  how  hardly  you  live, 
you  and  your  wife  and  daughter." 

''Take  a  little  more  time  about  it,"  others  would  suggest. 
"  A  wound  in  the  purse  is  not  mortal." 

"  No,  but  a  wound  in  the  soul  is  deadly  indeed,"  the  poor 
feeble  Cesar  said  one  day  in  answer  to  Matifat. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  year  1823  the  Canal  Saint-Martin 
was  decided  upon,  and  land  in  the  Faubourg  du  Temple 
fetched  fabulous  prices.  The  canal  would  actually  pass 
through  the  property  once  Cesar's,  now  du  Tillet's.  The 
company  who  had  purchased  the  concessions  were  prepared  to 
pay  du  Tillet  an  exorbitant  sum  for  the  land  if  he  Would  put 
them  in  possession  within  a  given  time,  and  Popinot's  lease 
was  the  one  obstacle  in  the  way.  So  du  Tillet  went  to  see  the 
druggist  in  the  Rue  des  Cinq-Diamants. 

If  Popinot  himself  regarded  du  Tillet  with  indifference,  as 
Cesarine's  lover  he  felt  an  instinctive  hatred  of  the  man.  He 
knew  nothing  of  the  theft,  nor  of  the  disgraceful  machinations 
of  the  lucky  banker,  but  a  voice  within  him  said,  "This  is  a 
thief  who  goes  unpunished."  Popinot  had  not  had  the  slightest 
transaction  with  du  Tillet,  whose  presence  was  hateful  to  him, 
and  particularly  hateful  at  that  moment  when  he  beheld  du 
Tillet  enriched  with  the  spoils  of  his  employer's  property,  for 
the  building  land  at  the  Madeleine  was  beginning  to  command 
prices  which  presaged  the  exorbitant  sums  which  were  asked 
for  lots  in  1827.     So  when  the  banker  explained  the  reason 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  323 

of  his  visit,  Popinot  looked  at  him  with  concentrated  indig- 
nation. 

"I  do  not  mean  to  refuse  outright  to  surrender  my  lease, 
but  I  must  have  sixty  thousand  francs  for  it,  and  I  will  not 
bate  a  centime." 

"Sixty  thousand  francs!"  cried  du  Tillet,  making  as 
though  he  would  go. 

"  The  lease  has  fifteen  years  to  run,  and  it  will  take  another 
three  thousand  francs  per  annum  to  replace  the  factory.  So, 
sixty  thousand  francs,  or  we  will  say  no  more  about  it,"  said 
Popinot,  turning  into  the  store,  whither  du  Tillet  followed 
him. 

The  discussion  waxed  warm,  when  Mme.  Birotteau,  hear- 
ing her  husband's  name  pronounced,  came  downstairs  and 
saw  du  Tillet  for  the  first  time  since  the  famous  ball.  He,  on 
his  side,  could  not  avoid  making  a  startled  gesture  at  the  sight 
of  the  change  wrought  in  her  face — he  was  frightened  at  his 
work  and  lowered  his  eyes. 

"  This  gentleman  is  receiving  three  hundred  thousand  francs 
for  your  land,"  said  Popinot,  addressing  Mme.  Cesar,  "and 
he  declines  to  pay  us  sixty  thousand  francs  by  way  of  indem- 
nity for  our  lease " 

"  Three  thousand  francs  per  annum,"  said  du  Tillet,  laying 
stress  on  the  words. 

"Three  thousand  francs  J '"  Madame  Cesar  repeated  the 
words  quietly  and  significantly. 

Du  Tillet  turned  pale;  Popinot  looked  at  Mme.  Birotteau. 
*  There  was  a  pause  and  a  deep  silence,  which  made  the  scene 
still  more  inexplicable  to  Anselme. 

"Sign  your  surrender,"  said  du  Tillet;  "I  have  had  the 
document  drafted  by  Crottat,"  and  he  drew  a  stamped  agree- 
ment from  a  side-pocket.  "  I  will  give  you  a  draft  on  the 
bank  for  sixty  thousand  francs." 

Popinot  stared  at  Mme.  Cesar  with  great  and  unfeigned 
astonishment ;  he  thought  that  he  was  dreaming.     While  du 


324  CESAR  BIROTTEACT. 

Tillet  was  making  out  his  draft  at  a  desk,  Mme.  Cesar  van- 
ished upstairs  again.  The  druggist  and  the  banker  exchanged 
papers,  and  du  Tillet  went  out  with  a  very  frigid  bow  to 
Popinot. 

"At  last!"  cried  Popinot.  "Only  a  few  months  now, 
and  I  shall  have  my  Cesarine,  thanks  to  this  queer  business," 
and  he  watched  du  Tillet  turn  into  the  Rue  des  Lombards, 
where  his  cab  was  waiting  for  him.  "  My  dear  little  wife 
shall  not  wear  herself  to  death  at  her  work.  What !  was  a 
look  from  Madame  Cesar  enough  ?  What  is  there  between 
her  and  that  brigand?     It  is  a  very  extraordinary  thing." 

Popinot  sent  the  draft  to  be  cashed  at  the  bank  and  went 
upstairs  to  speak  to  Mme.  Birotteau ;  but  she  was  not  in  the 
counting-house,  doubtless  she  had  gone  to  her  room.  Anselme 
and  Constance  lived  like  a  mother-in-law  and  son-in-law 
when  these  are  on  good  terms  with  each  other,  so  he  went  to 
Constance's  room  in  all  the  haste  natural  in  a  lover  who  sees 
happiness  within  his  grasp. 

Great  was  his  astonishment  to  find  his  mother-in-law  (whom 
he  surprised  by  springing  into  the  room)  reading  a  letter  from 
du  Tillet,  for  Anselme  recognized  the  handwriting  at  once. 
The  sight  of  a  lighted  candle  and  black  phantom  scraps  of 
burnt  paper  on  the  floor  sent  a  shudder  through  Popinot, 
whose  long-sighted  eyes  had  involuntarily  read  the  words  with 
which  the  letter  began,  "  I  adore  you  !  You  know  it,  angel 
of  my  life,  and  why " 

"What  hold  have  you  on  du  Tillet  to  make  him  conclude 
such  a  bargain  as  this?  "  he  asked,  with  the  jerky  laugh  of 
repressed  suspicion. 

"Let  us  not  talk  of  it,"  she  said,  and  he  saw  that  she  was 
painfully  agitated. 

"Yes,"  answered  Popinot,  quite  taken  aback,  "we  must 
talk  of  the  end  of  your  troubles."  Anselme  swung  round  on 
his  heels  and  drummed  on  the  window-pane,  staring  out  into 
the  yard.     "Very  well,"  said  he  to  himself,  "and  suppose 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  325 

that  she  loved  du  Tillet,  is  that  any  reason  why  I  should  not 
behave  like  a  man  of  honor?  " 

"  What  is  it,  my  boy?"  the  poor  woman  asked. 

"The  net  profits  on  the  Cephalic  Oil  amount  to  two  hun- 
dred and  forty-two  thousand  francs,  and  the  half  of  two  hun- 
dred and  forty-two  is  one  hundred  and  twenty-one,"  said  Pop- 
inot  abruptly.  "  If  I  deduct  from  that  sum  the  forty-eight 
thousand  francs  already  paid  to  Monsieur  Birotteau,  there  still 
remain  seventy-three  thousand;  add  to  it  the  sixty  thousand 
just  paid  for  the  surrender  of  the  lease,  and  you  will  have  one 
hundred  and  thirtv-three  thousand  francs." 

Mme.  Cesar  listened  in  such  glad  excitement  that  Popinot 
could  hear  the  beating  of  her  heart. 

"Well,  I  have  always  looked  on  Monsieur  Birotteau  as  my 
partner,"  he  continued;  "we  can  employ  the  money  in  re- 
paying his  creditors.  Your  savings,  twenty-eight  thousand 
francs,  in  Uncle  Pillerault's  keeping,  will  raise  the  sum  to  a 
hundred  and  sixty-one  thousand  francs.  Uncle  will  not  refuse 
to  give  us  a  receipt  for  his  twenty-five  thousand  francs.  No 
power  on  earth  can  prevent  my  lending  to  my  father-in-law, 
on  account  of  next  year's  profits,  enough  to  pay  off  the  re- 
mainder of  his  creditors.  And — he — will — be — rehabili- 
tated  " 

"Rehabilitated  !  "  cried  Mme.  Cesar,  kneeling  before  her 
chair,  and,  clasping  her  hands,  she  repeated  a  prayer.  The 
letter  had  slipped  from  her  fingers.  She  crossed  herself. 
"Dear  Anselme  !  "  she  said,  "dear  boy!"  She  took  his 
face  in  her  hands,  kissed  him  on  the  forehead,  and  held  him 
tightly  in  her  arms.  "  Cesarine  is  yours,  indeed,"  she  cried. 
"  My  daughter  will  be  very  happy.  She  will  leave  the  house 
where  she  is  working  herself  to  death." 

"Through  love,"  said  Anselme. 

"Yes,"  smiled  the  mother. 

"  Listen  to  a  little  secret,"  said  Anselme,  looking  out  of  the 
corner  of  his  eye  at  the  unlucky  letter.     "  I  obliged  Celestin 


326  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

when  he  wanted  capital  to  buy  your  business,  but  it  was  on 
one  condition  :  Your  rooms  are  just  as  you  left  them.  I  had 
my  own  idea,  but  I  did  not  think  then  that  fortune  would 
favor  us  so  greatly.  Celestin  has  undertaken  to  sub-let  your 
old  rooms  to  you ;  he  has  not  set  foot  in  them,  and  all  the 
furniture  there  is  yours.  I  am  reserving  the  third  story,  so 
that  Cesarine  and  I  may  live  there ;  she  shall  never  leave  you. 
After  we  are  married,  I  will  spend  the  day  here  from  eight 
o'clock  in  the  morning  till  six  in  the  evening.  Then  I  will 
buy  out  Monsieur  Cesar's  interest  in  the  business  for  a  hundred 
thousand  francs,  so  that,  with  his  post,  you  will  have  ten  thou- 
sand livres  a  year.     Will  you  not  be  happy?  " 

"  Do  not  say  any  more,  Anselme,  or  I  shall  go  mad  with 
joy." 

Mme.  Cesar's  angelic  bearing,  her  pure  eyes,  the  innocence 
on  her  fair  brow,  gave  the  lie  so  magnificently  to  the  countless 
thoughts  which  surged  up  in  the  young  lover's  brain,  that  he 
made  up  his  mind  to  slay  the  chimeras  of  his  fancy.  The  sin 
was  irreconcilable  with  the  life  and  the  sentiments  of  Pille- 
rault's  niece. 

"  My  dear  adored  mother,"  he  began,  "a  horrible  doubt 
has  just  crossed  my  mind.  If  you  would  see  me  happy,  you 
will  set  it  at  rest." 

Popinot  held  out  his  hand  as  he  spoke,  and  took  possession 
of  the  letter. 

"  Unintentionally  I  read  the  first  words  in  du  Tillet's  hand- 
writing," he  said,  alarmed  at  the  consternation  in  her  face. 
"The  words  coincide  so  oddly  with  the  effect  you  just  pro- 
duced upon  the  man,  who  complied  at  once  with  my  extrava- 
gant demands,  that  anybody  would  find  the  explanation  which 
the  devil  suggests  to  me  in  spite  of  myself.  A  glance  from 
you,  and  three  words  were  enough " 

"  Stop,"  said  Mme.  Cesar,  and,  taking  back  the  letter,  she 
burned  it  under  Anselme's  eyes.  "  I  am  cruelly  punished  for 
a  trifling  fault,  my  child.     And  now  you  must  know  all,  An- 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  327 

selme.  The  suspicion  attaching  to  the  mother  must  not  do 
her  daughter  an  injury,  and,  beside,  I  may  speak  without  a 
blush  ;  I  could  tell  my  husband  this  that  I  am  about  to  tell 
you.  Du  Tillet  tried  to  seduce  me,  my  husband  was  warned 
at  once,  and  du  Tillet  was  to  be  dismissed.  The  very  day 
that  my  husband  was  to  discharge  him  du  Tillet  took  three 
thousand  francs." 

"  I  suspected  it,"  said  Popinot,  with  all  his  hatred  of  the 
man  in  his  tone. 

"Anselme,  your  future  and  your  happiness  required  this 
confidence,  but  it  must  die  in  your  own  breast,  as  it  had 
died  in  Cesar's  and  mine.  You  surely  remember  the  fuss  my 
husband  made  about  the  mistake  in  the  books.  Monsieur  Birot- 
teau,  no  doubt,  put  three  thousand  francs  into  the  safe  (the  price 
of  the  shawl,  which  was  not  given  to  me  for  three  years),  so 
as  to  avoid  ruining  the  young  man  by  bringing  him  into  a 
police  court.  So  there  you  have  the  explanation  of  my  cry 
of  surprise.  Alas,  my  dear  boy,  I  will  confess  my  childish 
conduct.  Du  Tillet  had  written  three  love  letters  to  me, 
letters  which  showed  his  nature  so  plainly  that  I  kept  them — 
as  a  curiosity.  I  only  read  them  once  ;  but,  after  all,  it  was 
not  wise  to  keep  them.  When  I  saw  du  Tillet,  I  thought  of 
them,  and  went  up  to  my  room  to  burn  them.  When  you 
came  in,  I  was  looking  at  the  last  one.  That  is  all,  my 
dear." 

Anselme  knelt  and  kissed  Mme.  Cesar's  hand.  The  ex- 
pression in  his  eyes  drew  tears  of  admiring  affection  from 
hers.  Constance  raised  her  son-in-law  and  clasped  him  to 
her  heart. 

That  day  was  destined  to  be  a  day  of  joy  for  C6sar. 
The  King's  private  secretary,  M.  de  Vandenesse,  came 
to  the  office  to  speak  with  him.  They  went  out  together 
into  the  little  courtyard  of  the  Sinking  Fund   Department. 

"Monsieur  Birotteau,"  said  the  Vicomte,  "the  story  of 
your  struggle  to  pay  your  creditors  came  by  chance  to  the 


328  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

King's  knowledge.  His  majesty  was  touched  by  such  un- 
usual conduct ;  and  learning  that,  from  motives  of  humility, 
you  were  not  wearing  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor, 
he  has  sent  me  to  command  you  to  resume  it.  His  majesty 
also  wishes  to  assist  you  to  discharge  your  obligations,  and 
has  ordered  me  to  pay  this  amount  to  you  out  of  his  own 
privy  purse,  with  regrets  that  he  can  do  no  more  for  you. 
Let  the  matter  remain  a  profound  secret,  for  his  majesty 
thinks  it  little  becomes  a  King  to  make  official  proclama- 
tion of  his  good  actions,"  and  the  private  secretary  paid 
over  six  thousand  francs  to  the  employe,  who  heard  these 
words  with  indescribable  emotions. 

Birotteau  could  only  stammer  inarticulate  thanks.  Van- 
denesse  smiled  and  waved  his  hand.  Cesar's  principles  are 
so  rarely  seen  in  practice  in  Paris  that  by  degrees  his  life 
had  won  just  admiration.  Joseph  Lebas,  Popinot  the  elder, 
Camusot,  Ragon,  the  Abbe  Loraux,  the  head  partner  of  the 
firm  which  employed  Cesarine,  Lourdois,  and  M.  de  la  Bil- 
lardiere  had  spoken  of  it.  The  scale  of  opinion  had  already 
turned  in  his  favor,  and  people  praised  him  to  the  skies. 

"  There  goes  a  man  of  honor  !  "  The  words  had  reached 
Cesar's  ears  several  times  in  the  street ;  he  heard  them 
with  the  sensations  of  an  author  who  hears  his  name  pro- 
nounced. This  fair  renown  disgusted  du  Tillet.  Cesar's 
first  thought  on  receiving  the  King's  bank-notes  was  of  repay- 
ment to  his  ex-assistant.  The  good  man  betook  himself  to 
the  Rue  de  la  Chaussee-d'Antin,  and  it  so  fell  out  that  the 
banker,  returning  home  from  business,  met  him  upon  the 
staircase. 

"  Well,  my  poor  Birotteau,"  said  he,  in  a  caressing  tone. 

"  Poor?"  the  other  cried  proudly.  "I  am  very  rich.  I 
shall  lay  my  head  on  the  pillow  to-night  with  the  satisfaction 
of  knowing  that  I  have  paid  you." 

The  words,  so  full  of  honesty,  put  du  Tillet  for  a  moment 
on  the  rack.     Every  one  respected  him,  but  he  had  lost  his 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  329 

own  self-respect ;  a  voice  which  could  not  be  stifled  cried 
within  him,  "  This  man  is  heroic  !  "     But  he  spoke — 

"  Pay  me  !  What  business  can  you  be  in  ?  "  he  enviously 
inquired. 

Birotteau  felt  quite  sure  that  du  Tillet  would  not  repeat  the 
story. 

"I  shall  never  start  in  business  again,  sir.  No  human 
power  could  foresee  the  thing  that  befell  me.  Who  knows 
but  what  I  might  be  the  victim  of  another  Roguin  ?  But  my 
conduct  has  been  put  before  the  King,  his  heart  has  deigned 
to  compassionate  my  struggles,  and  he  has  encouraged  them 
by  sending  me  at  once  a  fairly  large  sum,  which " 

"  Do  you  want  a  receipt  in  full  ?  "  du  Tillet  cut  him  short. 
"Are  you  paying " 

"  In  full,  and  interest  beside.  So  I  must  beg  you  to  come 
to  Monsieur  Crottat's  office,  a  step  or  two  away." 

"  In  the  presence  of  a  notary  !  " 

"  Why,  sir,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  me  from  thinking 
of  my  rehabilitation,  and  a  document  so  authenticated  is  legal 
evidence " 

"  Come,  let  us  go,"  said  du  Tillet,  and  he  went  out  with 
Birotteau;  "it  is  only  a  step.  But  who  will  find  you  so 
much  money?"  he  went  on. 

"  No  one  finds  it  for  me,"  said  Cesar.  "lam  earning  it 
by  the  sweat  of  my  brow." 

"You  owe  an  enormous  amount  to  Claparon." 

"Alas  !  yes,  that  is  the  heaviest  of  my  debts  ;  I  am  afraid 
the  effort  will  be  too  much  for  me." 

"  Oh  !  you  will  never  be  able  to  pay  it  all,"  said  du  Tillet 
harshly. 

"  He  is  right,"  thought  Birotteau. 

He  went  home  again  by  way  of  the  Rue  Saint-Honore,  a 
piece  of  inadvertence,  for  he  always  went  round  some  other 
way  that  he  might  not  see  his  shop,  nor  the  windows  of  his 
old  home.     For  the  first  time  since  his  fall,  he  saw  the  house 


330  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

where  he  had  spent  eighteen  happy  years,  and  three  months 
of  anguish  that  effaced  those  memories. 

"  I  used  to  count  on  ending  my  days  there,"  he  said  to 
himself;  and  he  quickened  his  pace  at  the  sight  of  a  new 
name  on  the  store-front : 

Celestin  Crevel 
Formerly  Cesar  Birotteau. 

"  My  eyes  dazzle Is  that  Cesarine?  "  he  cried,  think- 
ing that  he  had  seen  a  golden  head  at  the  window. 

It  was  really  Cesarine  whom  he  saw,  and  his  wife  was  there, 
and  so  was  Popinot.  The  two  lovers  knew  that  Birotteau 
never  went  past  his  old  home  ;  and  it  was  impossible  that 
they  should  imagine  the  great  event  in  the  Rue  de  l'Oratoire, 
so  they  had  gone  to  make  arrangements  for  the  fete  they  were 
planning  to  give  in  Birotteau's  honor.  The  strange  appari- 
tion astonished  Cesar  so  much  that  he  stood  stockstill. 

"There  is  Monsieur  Birotteau  looking  at  his  old  house," 
said  M.  Molineux  to  a  storekeeper  who  lived  over  against  the 
Queen  of  Roses. 

"Poor  man!"  returned  Birotteau's  old  neighbor,  "he 
gave  one  of  the  grandest  balls  there — there  were  two  hundred 
carriages  in  the  street." 

"I  went  to  it;  he  went  bankrupt  three  months  afterward, 
and  I  was  trustee,"  said  Molineux. 

Birotteau  fled,  his  legs  trembling  beneath  him,  and  reached 
Pillerault's  house. 

Pillerault  knew  what  was  passing  in  the  Rue  des  Cinq-Dia- 
mants,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  his  nephew  was  scarcely  fit 
to  bear  the  shock  of  a  joy  so  great  as  his  rehabilitation.  He 
had  been  a  daily  witness  of  Cesar's  mental  sufferings,  knew 
that  Birotteau's  own  stern  doctrine  as  to  bankrupts  was  always 
in  his  thoughts,  and  that  he  was  living  up  to  the  very  limit 
of  his  strength.     Dead  honor  might  yet  have  its  Easter  Day 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  331 

for  him  ;  and  it  was  this  hope  that  gave  him  no  respite  from 
pain.  Pillerault  undertook  to  prepare  Cesar  for  the  good 
news ;  so  when  he  came  in,  his  uncle  was  thinking  how  to 
attain  his  end.  Cesar  began  to  tell  the  news  of  the  interest 
that  the  King  had  taken  in  him,  his  joy  seemed  to  Pillerault 
to  be  auspicious,  and  his  amazement  that  Cesarine  should  be 
at  the  window  at  the  sign  of  the  Queen  of  Roses  afforded  an 
excellent  opening. 

"Well,  Cesar,"  Pillerault  began,  "do  you  know  what 
brought  it  about?  Popinot  is  impatient  to  marry  Cesarine. 
He  will  not  and  ought  not  to  be  bound  any  longer  by  your 
extravagant  ideas  of  honor,  to  spend  his  youth  in  eating  dry 
bread  and  smelling  a  good  dinner.  Popinot  is  determined  to 
pay  off  your  creditors  in  full." 

"  He  is  going  to  buy  his  wife." 

"Isn't  it  to  his  credit  that  he  wants  to  rehabilitate  his 
father-in-law?  " 

"  But  questions  might  be  raised,  and,  beside " 

"And,  beside,"  cried  Uncle  Pillerault  in  feigned  anger, 
"you  may  sacrifice  yourself  if  you  like,  but  you  have  no  right 
to  sacrifice  your  daughter." 

A  lively  discussion  began,  and  Pillerault  apparently  worked 
himself  up. 

"Eh!  If  Popinot  lent  you  nothing,"  cried  he;  "  if  he 
had  looked  upon  you  as  his  partner;  if  he  chose  to  consider 
the  money  that  he  paid  over  to  your  creditors  for  your  interest 
in  the  Oil  as  an  advance  on  account  of  the  profits,  so  that  you 
should  not  be  robbed " 

"  It  would  look  as  though  I  had  arranged  with  him  to  cheat 
my  creditors." 

Pillerault  pretended  to  be  defeated  by  this  logic.  He  knew 
enough  of  human  nature  to  guess  that  during  the  night  the 
good  man  would  argue  out  the  case  with  himself;  and  those 
private  reflections  of  his  would  accustom  him  to  the  idea  of 
rehabilitation. 


332  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

"But  how  came  my  wife  and  daughter  to  be  in  our  old 
house?"  he  asked  at  dinner. 

"  Anselme  means  to  take  one  of  the  floors,  and  he  and 
Cesarine  will  set  up  housekeeping  there.  Your  wife  is  on  his 
side.  They  have  had  the  banns  put  up  without  telling  you, 
so  as  to  compel  you  to  give  your  consent.  Popinot  says  that 
there  will  be  less  merit  in  marrying  Cesarine  after  you  are 
rehabilitated.  You  accept  the  King's  six  thousand  francs, 
and  yet  you  will  take  nothing  from  your  relatives  !  Now,  for 
my  own  part,  I  am  quite  justified  in  giving  you  a  receipt  in 
full ;  would  you  refuse  it?  " 

"No,"  said  Cesar.  "But  it  would  not  hinder  me  from 
saving  the  money  to  pay  you,  receipt  or  not." 

"All  this  is  splitting  hairs,"  said  Pillerault,  "and  when 
honesty  is  in  question,  I  ought  to  be  allowed  to  know  what  is 
right.  What  folly  were  you  talking  just  now?  When  your 
creditors  are  all  paid  in  full,  will  you  still  persist  that  you  have 
cheated  them  !  " 

Cesar  looked  full  at  Pillerault  as  he  spoke,  and  it  touched 
the  older  man  to  see  a  bright  smile  on  his  nephew's  face  after 
three  years  of  dejection. 

"  You  are  right,"  he  said,  "  they  would  be  paid.  But  it  is 
like  selling  my  daughter  !  " 

"And  I  wish  to  be  bought,"  cried  Cesarine,  who  came  in 
with  Popinot. 

The  lovers  stealing  on  tiptoe  through  the  lobby  had  over- 
heard the  words.  Mme.  Birotteau  was  just  behind  them. 
The  three  had  made  a  round  in  a  cab,  asking  all  the  creditors 
to  meet  in  Crottat's  office  that  evening;  Popinot's  lover's 
logic  bore  down  Cesar's  scruples ;  but  he  still  persisted  in 
calling  himself  a  debtor,  and  would  have  it  that  he  was  out- 
flanking the  law  by  a  substitution.  Conscience  yielded  to  an 
outburst  from  Popinot — 

"  So  you  mean  to  kill  your  daughter,  do  you?" 

"Kill  my  daughter!  "  echoed  Cesar,  bewildered. 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  333 

"Well,  now,"  said  Popinot,  "  what  is  there  to  prevent  me 
from  making  a  deed  of  gift  in  your  favor  of  a  sum  which  on 
my  conscience  I  believe  to  be  yours?     Can  you  refuse  ?  " 

"No,"  said  Cesar. 

"  Good.  Then  let  us  go  to  Alexandre  Crottat  this  evening, 
so  that  there  shall  be  no  going  back  upon  it,  and  our  marriage- 
contract  can  be  decided  at  the  same  time." 

An  application  for  reinstatement  and  all  the  necessary 
certificates  were  duly  deposited  by  Derville  at  the  office  of 
the  procureur-general  of  the  Court  of  Appeal. 

During  the  month  which  elapsed  between  the  putting  up  of 
the  banns  and  the  marriage,  and  during  the  progress  of  the 
formalities,  Cesar  lived  in  a  state  of  constant  nervous  excite- 
ment. He  was  ill  at  ease.  He  feared  that  he  might  not  live  to 
see  the  great  day  when  his  disabilities  should  be  formally 
removed.  His  pulse  throbbed  unaccountably,  he  said,  and  he 
complained  of  a  dull  pain  about  the  heart.  He  had  been 
exhausted  by  painful  emotion  and  this  supreme  joy  was 
wearing  him  out.  Decrees  of  rehabilitation  are  rare  in 
Paris ;  there  is  scarcely  one  in  ten  years. 

There  is  something  indescribably  solemn  and  imposing  in 
the  ceremonial  of  justice  for  those  who  take  society  seriously. 
An  institution  is  to  men  as  they  consider  it,  and  is  invested 
with  dignity  and  grandeur  by  their  thoughts.  When  a  nation 
has  ceased,  not  to  feel  the  religious  instinct,  but  to  believe ; 
when  primary  education  relaxes  the  bonds  of  union  by  teach- 
ing children  a  habit  of  merciless  anaylsis,  a  nation  is  dissolved ; 
for  the  only  ties  that  are  left  to  bind  men  together  and  make 
of  them  one  body  are  the  ignoble  ties  of  material  interest 
and  the  dictates  of  the  selfish  cult  created  by  egoism  well 
carried  out.  Birotteau,  sustained  by  religion,  saw  Justice  as 
Justice  ought  to  be  regarded  among  men,  as  the  expression 
of  society  itself;  beneath  the  forms  he  saw  the  sovereign 
will,  the  laws  by  which  men  have  agreed  to  live.  If  the 
magistrate  .is  old,  feeble,  and  white-haired,  so  much  the  more 


334  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

solemn  does  his  priestly  office  appear,  an  office  which  demands 
so  profound  a  study  of  human  nature  and  of  things,  an  office 
to  which  the  heart  is  immolated,  for  of  necessity  it  becomes 
callous  in  a  guardian  of  so  many  palpitating  interests. 

In  these  days  the  men  who  cannot  ascend  the  staircase  of 
the  Court  of  Appeal  in  the  old  Palais  de  Justice  in  Paris 
without  feeling  deeply  stirred  are  growing  rare;  but  Birot- 
teau  was  one  of  these  men.  There  are  not  many  who  notice 
the  majestic  grandeur  of  that  staircase,  so  magnificently 
planned  to  produce  an  effect.  It  rises  at  the  further  end  of 
the  peristyle  which  adorns  the  Cour  du  Palais.  The  doorway 
opens  on  the  centre  of  the  gallery  which  leads  from  the  vast 
Salle  des  Pas  Perdus  at  its  one  end  to  the  Sainte-Chapelle  at 
the  other,  two  monuments  which  may  well  dwarf  everything 
about  them  into  insignificance.  The  church  of  St.  Louis  is 
in  itself  one  of  the  grandest  buildings  in  Paris,  and  there  is 
an  indescribable  dim  atmosphere  of  romance  about  it  when 
approached  by  way  of  this  gallery  ;  while  the  vast  Salle  des 
Pas  Perdus  is  flooded  with  daylight,  and  it  is  hard  to  forget 
memories  of  the  history  of  France  that  cling  about  its  walls. 
So  the  staircase  must  have  a  grandeur  of  its  own  if  it  is  not 
utterly  overshadowed  by  the  glories  of  those  two  famous 
buildings.  Perhaps  there  is  something  to  stir  the  soul  at 
the  sight  of  the  place  where  decrees  are  executed,  beheld 
through  the  rich  scroll-work  of  the  screen  of  the  Palais. 
The  staircase  gives  entrance  to  a  vast  room,  the  Salle  des 
Pas  Perdus  of  this  court,  beyond  which  lies  the  Hall  of  Audi- 
ence. Imagine  the  feeling  with  which  Birotteau  (always  so 
much  impressed  by  the  circumstance  of  justice)  mounted  the 
staircase  among  a  little  crowd  of  his  friends — Lebas,  at  that 
time  president  of  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce ;  Camusot,  who 
had  acted  as  registrar ;  Ragon,  his  old  master ;  and  the  Abbe 
Loraux,  his  confessor.  The  presence  of  the  good  priest 
enhanced  these  earthly  honors  by  a  reflection  from  heaven, 
which  gave  them  yet  more  value  in  Cesar's  eyes, 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  335 

Pillerault,  that  practical  philosopher,  had  bethought  him 
of  the  expedient  of  dwelling  upon  and  exaggerating  the  joy 
of  the  release,  so  that  the  actual  experience  might  not  over- 
whelm Cesar.  Just  as  he  finished  dressing  he  found  himself 
surrounded  by  faithful  friends,  all  anxious  for  the  honor  of 
accompanying  him  to  the  bar  of  the  court.  The  delight 
which  suffused  the  good  man's  soul  at  the  sight  of  this  group 
raised  him  to  a  pitch  of  happiness  necessary  for  him  if  he  was 
to  endure  the  alarming  ordeal.  He  found  others  of  his  friends 
standing  in  the  Great  Hall  of  Audience,  where  a  dozen  coun- 
cilors were  sitting. 

After  the  case  had  been  called,  Birotteau's  attorney  made 
application  in  a  brief  formula.  At  a  sign  from  the  president, 
the  attorney-general  rose  to  give  his  opinion.  In  the  name 
of  the  court,  the  attorney-general,  the  public  accuser,  was 
about  to  make  demand  that  the  merchant's  honor,  which  had 
been  pledged,  should  be  vindicated  ;  a  proceeding  unique  in 
law,  for  a  condemned  man  can  only  be  pardoned.  Those 
who  have  hearts  that  feel  can  imagine  Birotteau's  feelings 
when  M.  de  Granville  spoke  somewhat  as  follows : 

"Gentlemen,"  said  the  great  lawyer,  "on  the  16th  of 
January,  1820,  Birotteau  was  declared  a  bankrupt  by  the  Tri- 
bunal of  Commerce  of  the  Seine.  The  insolvency  was  not 
occasioned  by  imprudence  on  the  part  of  the  merchant,  nor 
by  dishonest  speculation,  nor  any  other  cause  which  could 
stain  his  honor.  We  feel  that  it  is  necessary  to  state  it  pub- 
licly— the  calamity  was  brought  about  by  one  of  those  disas- 
ters which  occur  from  time  to  time,  to  the  great  affliction  of 
justice  and  of  the  city  of  Paris.  It  was  reserved  for  this 
present  century,  in  which  the  evil  leaven  of  subverted  morals 
and  revolutionary  ideas  will  long  ferment,  to  behold  the  Paris- 
ian notariat  depart  from  the  honorable  traditions  of  its  past; 
there  have  been  more  cases  of  insolvency  in  that  body  during 
the  last  few  years  than  in  two  preceding  centuries  under  the 
ancient  monarchy.     The  greed  of  gold  rapidly  acquired  has 


336  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

seized  upon  officials,  those  guardians  of  the  public  welfare 
and  intermediary  authorities." 

Then  followed  a  tirade  based  on  this  text,  in  the  course  of 
which  M.  le  Comte  de  Granville  (speaking  in  character)  took 
occasion  to  incriminate  Liberals,  Bonapartists,  and  all  and 
sundry  who  were  disaffected,  as  in  duty  bound.  Events  have 
shown  that  there  was  good  ground  for  the  councilor's  appre- 
hensions. 

"The  immediate  cause  of  the  plaintiffs  ruin  was  the  action 
of  a  Paris  notary,  who  absconded  with  the  money  which 
Birotteau  deposited  with  him.  The  sentence  passed  by  the 
court  in  Roguin's  case  shows  how  shamefully  he  had  betrayed 
his  client's  trust.  A  concordat  followed.  We  will  observe, 
for  the  honor  of  the  applicant,  that  the  proceedings  were 
characterized  by  honesty  not  to  be  met  with  in  the  scan- 
dalous failures  which  daily  occur  in  Paris.  Birotteau's  cred- 
itors, gentlemen,  found  every  trifle  that  he  possessed,  down  to 
trinkets  and  articles  of  wearing  apparel  belonging  not  only  to 
him,  but  to  his  wife,  who,  to  swell  the  assets,  gave  up  all  that 
she  had.  Birotteau  at  this  juncture  showed  himself  worthy 
of  the  respect  which  he  had  won  by  the  discharge  of  his  muni- 
cipal functions ;  for  he  was  at  that  time  deputy-mayor  of  the 
second  arrondissement,  and  had  just  received  the  cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor  accorded  to  the  devoted  Royalist,  who  shed 
his  blood  for  the  cause  on  the  steps  of  Saint-Roch  in  Vende- 
miaire  ;  and,  no  less,  to  the  consular  judge,  who  had  won 
respect  by  his  ability  and  popularity  by  his  conciliatory 
spirit ;  to  the  modest  municipal  officer,  who  declined  the 
honors  of  the  mayoralty  for  himself  and  put  forward  the 
name  of  another  as  more  worthy — the  honorable  Baron  de  la 
Billardiere,  one  of  the  noble  Vehdeans  whom  he  had  learned 
to  esteem  in  evil  days." 

"  He  put  that  better  than  I  did,"  said  Cesar  in  his  uncle's 
ear. 

"The  creditors,  therefore,  receiving  sixty  percent,  of  their 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  337 

claims,  thanks  to  the  upright  merchant  and  his  wife  and 
daughter,  who  surrendered  everything  that  they  possessed, 
gave  expression  to  their  respect  in  the  concordat,  by  which 
they  forwent  the  remainder  of  their  claims  in  consideration 
of  the  dividend.  The  attention  of  the  court  is  called  to  the 
manner  in  which  this  record  is  worded."  Here  the  attorney- 
general  read  the  concordat.  "  After  such  expressions  of  good- 
will, gentlemen,  many  a  trader  would  have  considered  him- 
self free,  and  would  have  walked  with  head  erect  in  public; 
but,  so  far  from  considering  his  liabilities  to  be  discharged, 
Birotteau  would  not  give  way  to  despair,  but  made  an  inward 
resolution  to  hasten  the  coming  of  a  glorious  day  which  here 
and  now  dawns  for  him.  Nothing  turned  him  aside  from  his 
purpose.  Our  beloved  sovereign  gave  a  post  to  the  man  who 
was  wounded  at  Saint-Roch,  and  the  bankrupt  merchant  set 
by  the  whole  of  his  salary  for  the  benefit  of  his  creditors,  for 
the  devotion  of  his  family  did  not  fail  him " 

Tears  came  into  Birotteau's  eyes  as  he  squeezed  his  uncle's 
hand. 

"His  wife  and  daughter  poured  their  earnings  into  the 
common  treasury;  they,  too,  had  embraced  Birotteau's  loyal 
purpose.  They  descended  from  their  position  to  take  a  sub- 
ordinate place.  Such  sacrifices  as  these,  gentlemen,  deserve 
all  honor,  for  they  are  the  hardest  of  all.  This  was  the  task 
which  Birotteau  laid  upon  himself." 

The  attorney  read  an  abbreviated  version  of  the  schedule, 
giving  the  names  of  the  creditors  and  the  balances  due  to 
them. 

"  Every  one  of  these  amounts,  gentlemen,  has  been  paid, 
interest  included.  The  receipts  have  not  been  given  by 
notes  of  hand  which  demand  investigation,  but  by  certificates 
of  payment  made  in  the  presence  of  a  notary,  documents 
which  do  not  abuse  the  good  faith  of  the  court,  though,  never- 
theless, the  inquiries  required  by  the  law  have  been  duly 
made.  You,  therefore,  restore  to  Birotteau  not  his  honor, 
22 


338  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

but  the  civil  and  political  privileges  of  which  he  has  been 
deprived,  and  in  so  doing  you  do  justice.  Such  cases  come 
so  seldom  before  you  that  we  cannot  refrain  from  giving 
expression  to  our  admiration  of  the  conduct  of  the  applicant, 
who  has  already  received  the  encouragement  of  august  patron- 
age." 

With  that,  he  read  the  formal  application.  The  court 
deliberated  without  retiring,  and  the  president  rose  to  pro- 
nounce the  decree. 

"The  court  charges  me  to  inform  Monsieur  Birotteau  of 
the  satisfaction  with  which  the  decree,  granted  under  such 
circumstances,  is  passed.     Call  the  next  case." 

Birotteau,  already  invested  with  a  caftan  of  honor  by  the 
attorney-general's  speech,  was  struck  dumb  with  joy  when 
he  heard  these  solemn  words  from  the  president  of  the  highest 
Court  of  Appeal  in  France,  words  which  made  those  who 
heard  them  feel  that  the  impassive  Themis  had  a  heart.  He 
could  not  move  from  his  place,  he  seemed  to  be  glued  to  the 
floor,  and  gazed  with  bewildered  eyes  at  the  councilors,  who 
seemed  to  him  like  angels  who  had  opened  the  gates  which 
admitted  him  to  life  among  his  fellows.  His  uncle  took  him 
by  the  arm  and  drew  him  away.  Then  Cesar,  who  had  not 
obeyed  the  desire  of  Louis  XVIII.,  fastened  the  red  ribbon 
at  his  button-hole,  like  a  man  in  a  dream,  and  went  down  in 
triumph  with  his  friends  about  him  to  the  hackney-cab. 

"  Where  are  you  taking  me?  "  he  asked  of  Joseph  Lebas, 
Pillerault,  and  Ragon. 

"Home." 

"  No.  It  is  three  o'clock  ;  I  want  to  go  on  'Change  again, 
now  that  I  have  the  right." 

"To  the  Exchange,"  Pillerault  gave  the  order  and  looked 
significantly  at  Lebas,  for  there  were  symptoms  which  made 
him  uneasy;  he  feared  for  Birotteau's  reason. 

So  Birotteau  went  back  on  'Change  between  his  uncle  and 
Joseph  Lebas;  the  two  merchants  whom  every  one  respected 


CESAR  BIR  O  TTEA  U.  339 

linked  their  arms  in  his.  The  news  of  his  rehabilitation  was 
abroad.  Du  Tillet  was  the  first  to  see  the  three  and  old 
Ragon,  who  followed  behind. 

"Ah  !  my  dear  master  !  Delighted  to  hear  that  you  have 
pulled  through  your  difficulties.  Perhaps  I  contributed  to 
bring  about  this  happy  termination  by  allowing  little  Popinot 
to  pluck  me  so  easily.  I  am  as  glad  of  your  happiness  as  if 
it  were  my  own." 

"It  is  the  only  way  open  to  you,"  said  Pillerault,  "for  you 
will  never  experience  it  yourself." 

"  What  do  you  mean,  sir  ?  "  asked  du  Tillet. 

"A  good  dig  in  the  ribs,  by  George,"  said  Lebas,  smiling 
at  Pillerault's  malicious  revenge.  He  knew  nothing  of  the 
part  that  du  Tillet  had  played,  but  he  looked  on  him  as  a 
scoundrel. 

Matifat  saw  Cesar,  and  immediately  all  the  most  respected 
merchants  crowded  about  the  perfumer  ;  he  received  an  ovation 
on  'Change,  the  most  flattering  congratulations  and  hand- 
shakes, which  caused  here  and  there  some  heart-burnings  and 
here  and  there  a  pang  of  remorse,  for  fifty  out  of  every  hun- 
dred present  had  been  insolvent  at  some  time  or  other. 

Gigonnet  and  Gobseck,  chatting  in  a  corner,  stared  at 
Cesar  as  the  learned  must  have  stared  when  the  first  electric 
eel  was  brought  for  their  inspection  and  they  beheld  that 
strange  curiosity,  a  living  leyden  jar. 

Then,  still  breathing  the  incense  of  triumph,  Cesar  went 
out  to  the  cab  and  drove  home  to  his  house,  where  the  mar- 
riage-contract between  his  dear  child  Cesarine  and  the  de- 
voted Popinot  was  to  be  signed  that  evening.  He  laughed 
nervously,  in  a  way  that  alarmed  his  three  old  friends. 

It  is  one  of  the  mistakes  of  youth  to  imagine  that  every  one 
has  the  vitality  of  youth,  a  defect  nearly  akin  to  its  best  en- 
dowment ;  for  youth  does  not  behold  life  through  a  pair  of 
spectacles,  but  through  the  radiant  hues  of  a  reflected  glow, 
and  age  itself  is  credited  with  its  own  exuberant  life.     Popi 


340  C&SAR  BIROTTEAU. 

not,  like  Cesar  and  Constance,  cherished  memories  of  the 
pomp  and  splendor  of  the  ball :  the  strains  of  Collinet's 
orchestra  had  often  rung  in  his  ears ;  he  had  seen  the  gay 
throng  of  dancers,  and  tasted  the  joy  so  cruelly  punished,  as 
Adam  and  Eve  might  have  thought  of  the  forbidden  fruit 
which  banished  them  from  the  Garden,  and  brought  Death 
and  Birth  into  the  world,  for  it  seems  that  the  multiplication 
of  the  anarels  is  one  of  the  mvsteries  of  the  Paradise  above. 

Popinot,  however,  could  think  of  that  night's  festivity  not 
only  without  remorse,  but  with  joy  in  his  heart,  for  then  it 
was  that  Cesarine  in  all  her  glory  had  given  her  promise  to 
him  in  his  poverty.  That  evening  he  had  known  beyond  all 
doubt  that  he  was  loved  for  himself  alone.  So  when  he  paid 
Celestin  for  the  rooms  which  Grindot  had  restored,  and  stipu- 
lated that  everything  should  be  left  untouched  ;  when  he  had 
carefully  seen  that  the  merest  trifles  belonging  to  Cesar  and 
Constance  were  in  their  place,  he  had  dreamed  of  giving  a 
ball  there  on  the  day  of  his  wedding.  The  preparations  for 
the  fete  had  been  a  work  of  love.  It  should  be  exactly  like 
the  previous  one,  except  in  the  extravagances.  Extravagance 
was  over  and  done  with.  Still,  the  dinner  was  to  be  served 
by  Chevet,  and  the  guests  were  almost  the  same.  The  Abbe 
Loraux  took  the  place  of  the  grand  chancellor ;  and  Lebas, 
the  president  of  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce,  was  to  be  there. 
Popinot  added  M.  Camusot's  name  to  the  list,  as  an  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  kindness  he  had  shown  to  Birotteau  in  so 
many  ways.  M.  de  Vandenesse  and  M.  de  Fontaine  took  the 
place  of  M.  and  Mme.  Roguin. 

Cesarine  and  Popinot  had  exercised  their  discretion  in  the 
matter  of  invitations  to  the  ball.  They  both  shrank  from 
making  a  festival  of  their  wedding,  and  had  avoided  the  pub- 
licity which  jars  on  pure  and  tender  hearts  by  giving  the 
dance  on  the  occasion  of  the  signing  of  the  contract.  Con- 
stance had  found  the  cherry-colored  velvet  dress  in  which  she 
had  shone  for  the  brief  space  of  a  single  day;  and  Cesarine 


CESAR  BIROTTEAU.  341 

had  pleased  herself  by  surprising  Popinot  in  the  ball-dress  of 
which  he  had  talked  times  out  of  mind.  So  the  house  was  to 
wear  the  same  air  of  an  enchanted  festival,  and  neither  Con- 
stance, nor  Cesarine,  nor  Anselme  thought  that  there  was  any 
danger  for  Cesar  in  this  joyful  surprise.  They  waited  till 
four  o'clock,  and  grew  almost  childish  in  their  happiness. 

After  the  hero  of  the  hour  had  passed  through  the  inde- 
scribable emotions  of  returning  to  the  Exchange,  a  fresh 
shock  awaited  him  in  the  Rue  Saint-Honore.  As  he  came  up 
the  stairs,  which  still  looked  new,  he  saw  his  wife  in  the 
cherry-colored  velvet  dress ;  he  saw  Cesarine,  the  Comte  de 
Fontaine,  the  Vicomte  de  Vandenesse,  the  Baron  de  la  Bil- 
lardiere,  and  the  great  Vauquelin  ;  a  light  film  spread  over  his 
eyes,  and  Uncle  Pillerault,  on  whose  arm  he  leaned,  felt  the 
shudder  that  ran  through  his  nephew. 

"  It  is  too  much  for  him,"  the  old  philosopher  said  to  the 
enamored  Anselme;  "  he  will  not  stand  all  the  wine  which  you 
have  poured  out  for  him." 

But  all  hearts  beat  so  high  with  joy  that  Cesar's  emotion 
and  tottering  steps  were  ascribed  to  an  intoxication,  very 
natural,  as  they  thought — but  not  seldom  fatal.  When  he 
looked  round  the  drawing-room  and  saw  it  filled  with  guests 
and  women  in  ball  toilets,  the  sublime  rhythm  of  the  finale 
of  Beethoven's  great  symphony  beat  in  his  pulses  and  flooded 
his  brain.  That  imaginary  music  streamed  in  on  him  like 
rays  of  light,  sparkling  from  modulation  to  modulation  ;  it  was 
to  be,  indeed,  the  filiate  that  rang  clear  and  high  through  the 
recesses  of  the  tired  brain.  Overcome  by  the  harmony  that 
swept  through  him,  he  laid  his  hand  on  his  wife's  arm,  and 
in  tones,  rendered  almost  inaudible  by  the  effort  to  keep  back 
the  flowing  blood  which  filled  his  mouth — 

"  I  am  not  well,"  he  said. 

Constance,  in  alarm,  led  her  husband  to  her  room  ;  he  was 
barely  able  to  reach  the  armchair,  into  which  he  sank,  ex- 
claiming, "  Monsieur  Haudry  !  Monsieur  Loraux  !  " 


342  CESAR  BIROTTEAU. 

The  abbe  came  in,  followed  by  the  guests  and  women  in 
evening  dress,  who  stood  in  consternation.  Cesar,  in  the 
midst  of  this  brightly  colored  throng,  grasped  his  confessor's 
hand,  and  laid  his  head  on  the  breast  of  the  wife  who  knelt 
beside  him.  A  bloodvessel  had  been  ruptured  in  the  lungs 
and  the  resulting  aneurism  was  stopping  his  last  breath. 

"Behold  the  death  of  the  righteous!"  the  Abbe  Loraux 
said  solemnly,  as  he  stretched  his  hand  toward  Cesar  with  one 
of  those  divine  gestures  which  Rembrandt's  inspiration  be- 
held and  recorded  in  his  picture  of  Christ  raising  Lazarus 
from  the  dead. 

Christ  bade  Earth  surrender  her  prey  ;  the  good  priest  sped 
a  soul  to  heaven,  where  the  martyr  to  commercial  integrity 
should  receive  an  unfading  palm. 


GAUDISSART    THE    GREAT. 


GAUDISSART  THE  GREAT 

{L?  Illustrc  Gaudissari). 
PARISIANS  IN  THE  COUNTRY. 

Translated  by  James  Waring. 

To  Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Castries. 

Is  not  the  commercial  traveler — a  being  quite  unknown  in 
earlier  times — one  of  the  most  curious  types  produced  by 
the  manners  and  customs  of  this  age  ?  And  is  it  not  his 
peculiar  function  to  carry  out  in  a  certain  class  of  things 
the  immense  transition  which  connects  the  age  of  material 
development  with  that  of  intellectual  development?  Our 
epoch  will  be  the  link  between  the  age  of  isolated  forces 
rich  in  original  creativeness  and  that  of  the  uniform  but 
leveling  force  which  gives  monotony  to  its  products,  casting 
them  in  masses,  and  following  out  one  unifying  idea — the 
ultimate  expression  of  social  communities.  After  the  Satur- 
nalia of  intellectual  communism,  after  the  last  struggles  of 
many  civilizations  concentrating  all  the  treasures  of  the 
world  on  a  single  spot,  must  not  the  darkness  of  barbarism 
invariably  supervene  ? 

The  commercial  traveler  is  to  ideas  what  coaches  are  to 
men  and  things.  He  carts  them  about ;  he  sets  them 
moving,  brings  them  into  impact.  He  loads  himself  at 
the  centre  of  enlightenment  with  a  supply  of  beams  which 
he  scatters  among  torpid  communities.  This  human  pyro- 
phoros  is  an  ignorant  instructor,  mystified  and  mystifying, 
a  disbelieving  priest  who  talks  all  the  more  glibly  of  arcana 
and  dogmas.     A  strange  figure  !     The  man  has  seen  every- 

M  t343) 


344  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

thing,  he  knows  everything,  he  is  acquainted  with  everybody. 
Saturated  in  Parisian  vice,  he  can  assume  the  rusticity  of  the 
countryman.  Is  he  not  the  link  that  joins  the  village  to  the 
capital,  though  himself  not  essentially  either  Parisian  or  pro- 
vincial? 

For  he  is  a  wanderer.  He  never  sees  to  the  bottom  of 
things ;  he  learns  only  the  names  of  men  and  places,  only 
the  surface  of  things ;  he  has  his  own  foot-rule  and  measures 
everything  by  that  standard ;  his  glance  glides  over  all  he 
sees,  and  never  penetrates  the  depths.  He  is  inquisitive 
about  everything,  and  really  cares  for  nothing.  A  scoffer, 
always  ready  with  a  political  song,  and  apparently  equally 
attached  to  all  parties,  he  is  generally  patriotic  at  heart.  A 
good  actor,  he  can  assume  by  turns  the  smile  of  liking,  satis- 
faction, and  obligingness,  or  cast  it  off  and  appear  in  his 
true  character,  in  the  normal  frame  which  is  his  state  of 
rest. 

He  is  bound  to  be  an  observer  or  to  renounce  his  calling. 
Is  he  not  constantly  compelled  to  sound  a  man  at  a  glance, 
and  guess  his  mode  of  action,  his  character,  and,  above  all, 
his  solvency  ;  and,  in  order  to  save  time,  to  calculate  swiftly 
the  chances  of  profit  ?  This  habit  of  deciding  promptly  in 
matters  of  business  makes  him  essentially  dogmatic  ;  he  settles 
questions  out  of  hand  and  talks,  as  a  master,  of  the  Paris 
theatres  and  actors,  and  of  those  in  the  provinces.  Beside, 
he  knows  all  the  good  and  all  the  bad  places  in  the  kingdom, 
by  both  doing  and  seeing.  He  would  steer  you  with  equal 
confidence  to  the  abode  of  virtue  or  of  vice.  Gifted  as  he  is 
with  the  eloquence  of  a  hot-water  tap  turned  on  at  will,  he 
can  with  equal  readiness  stop  short  or  begin  again,  without  a 
mistake,  his  stream  of  ready-made  phrases,  flowing  without 
pause,  and  producing  on  the  victim  the  effect  of  a  moral 
douche.  He  is  full  of  pertinent  anecdotes,  he  smokes,  he 
drinks.  He  wears  a  chain  with  seals  and  trinkets,  he  im- 
presses the  "small  fry,"  is  looked  at  as  a  milord  in  the  vil- 


GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT.  345 

lages,  never  allows  himself  to  be  "got  over  " — a  word  of  his 
slang — and  knows  exactly  when  to  slap  his  pocket  and  make 
the  money  jingle  so  as  not  to  be  taken  for  a  "sneak"  by 
the  women  servants — a  suspicious  race — of  the  houses  he 
calls  at. 

As  to  his  energy,  is  it  not  the  least  of  the  characteristics  of 
this  human  machine  ?  Not  the  kite  pouncing  on  its  prey, 
not  the  stag  inventing  fresh  doublings  to  escape  the  hounds 
and  put  the  hunter  off  the  trail,  not  the  dogs  coursing  the 
game,  can  compare  with  the  swiftness  of  his  rush  when  he 
scents  a  commission,  the  neatness  with  which  he  trips  up  a 
rival  to  gain  upon  him,  the  keenness  with  which  he  feels, 
sniffs,  and  spies  out  an  opportunity  for  "doing  business." 
How  many  special  talents  must  such  a  man  possess  !  And 
how  many  will  you  find  in  any  country  of  these  diplomats  of 
the  lower  class,  profound  negotiators,  representatives  of  the 
calico,  jewelry,  cloth,  or  wine  trades,  and  often  with  more 
acumen  than  ambassadors,  who  are  indeed  for  the  most  part 
but  superficial  ? 

Nobody  in  France  suspects  the  immense  power  constantly 
wielded  by  the  commercial  traveler,  the  bold  pioneer  of  the 
transactions  which  embody  to  the  humblest  hamlet  the  genius 
of  civilization  and  Parisian  inventiveness  in  its  struggle  against 
the  commonsense,  the  ignorance,  or  the  habits  of  rustic  life. 
We  must  not  overlook  these  ingenious  laborers,  by  whom  the 
intelligence  of  the  masses  is  kneaded,  moulding  the  most  re- 
fractory material  by  sheer  talk,  and  resembling  in  this  the  per- 
severing polishers  whose  file  licks  the  hardest  porphyry  smooth. 
Do  you  want  to  know  the  power  of  the  tongue  and  the  co- 
ercive force  of  mere  phrases  on  the  most  tenacious  coin  known 
— that  of  the  country  freeholder  in  his  rustic  lair?  Then 
listen  to  what  some  high  dignitary  of  Paris  industry  can  tell 
you,  for  whose  benefit  these  clever  pistons  of  the  steam-engine 
called  speculation  work,  and  strike,  and  squeeze. 

"  Monsieur,"   said   the"  director-eashier-manager-secretary- 


346  GAUD1SSART  THE    GREAT. 

and-chairman  of  a  famous  fire  insurance  company  to  an  ex- 
perienced economist,  "in  the  country,  out  of  five  hundred 
thousand  francs  to  be  collected  in  renewing  insurances,  not 
more  than  fifty  thousand  are  paid  willingly.  The  other  four 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  are  only  extracted  by  the  persist- 
ency of  our  agents,  who  go  to  dun  the  customers  who  are  in 
arrears  till  they  have  renewed  their  policies,  and  "frighten  and 
excite  them  by  fearful  tales  of  fires.  Eloquence,  the  gift  of 
the  gab,  is,  in  fact,  nine-tenths  of  the  matter  in  the  ways  and 
means  of  working  our  business." 

To  talk — to  make  one's  self  heard — is  not  this  seduction  ? 
A  nation  with  two  Chambers, 'a  woman  with  two  ears,  alike 
are  lost !  Eve  and  the  serpent  are  the  perennial  myth  of  a 
daily  recurring  fact  which  began  and  will  probably  only  end 
with  the  world. 

"After  two  hours'  talk  you  ought  to  have  won  a  man  over 
to  your  side,"  said  an  attorney  who  had  retired  from  business. 

Walk  round  the  commercial  traveler  !  Study  the  man. 
Note  his  olive-green  overcoat,  his  cloak,  his  morocco  stock, 
his  pipe,  his  blue-striped  cotton  shirt.  In  that  figure,  so 
genuinely  original  that  it  can  stand  friction,  how  many  dif- 
ferent natures  you  may  discover.  See  !  What  an  athlete, 
what  a  circus,  and  what  a  weapon  !  He — the  world — and  his 
tongue. 

A  daring  seaman,  he  embarks  with  a  stock  of  mere  words 
to  go  and  fish  for  money,  five  or  six  hundred  thousand  francs, 
say,  in  the  frozen  ocean,  the  land  of  savages,  of  Iroquois — in 
France  !  The  task  before  him  is  to  extract  by  a  purely  mental 
process  and  painless  operation  the  gold  that  lies  buried  in 
rural  hiding-places.  The  provincial  fish  will  not  stand  the 
harpoon  or  the  torch  ;  it  is  only  to  be  caught  in  the  seine  or 
the  landing-net — the  gentlest  snare. 

Can  you  ever  think  again  without  a  shudder  of  the  deluge 
of  phrases  which  begins  anew  every  day  at  dawn  in  France? 
You  know  the  genus ;  now  for  the  individual. 


GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT.  347 

There  dwells  in  Paris  a  matchless  drummer,  the  paragon  of 
his  kind,  a  man  possessing  in  the  highest  degree  every  condi- 
tion indispensable  to  success  in  his  profession.  In  his  words 
vitriol  mingles  with  bird-lime :  bird-lime  to  catch  the  victim, 
besmear  it  and  stick  it  to  the  trapper,  vitriol  to  dissolve  the 
hardest  limestone. 

His  "line"  was  hats — he  traveled  in  hats;  but  his  gifts, 
and  the  skill  with  which  he  ensnared  folk,  had  earned  him 
such  commercial  celebrity  that  dealers  in  V  Article  Paris*  the 
dainty  novelties  invented  in  Paris  workshops,  positively  courted 
him  to  undertake  their  business.  Thus,  when  he  was  in  Paris, 
on  his  return  from  some  triumphant  progress,  he  was  perpetu- 
ally being  feasted  ;  in  the  provinces  the  agents  made  much  of 
him  ;  in  Paris  the  largest  houses  were  respectful  to  him.  Wel- 
comed, entertained,  and  fed  wherever  he  went,  to  him  a 
breakfast  or  a  dinner  in  solitude  was  a  pleasure  and  a  debauch. 
He  led  the  life  of  a  sovereign — nay,  better,  of  a  journalist. 
And  was  he  not  the  living  organ  of  Paris  trade  ? 

His  name  was  Gaudissart ;  and  his  fame,  his  influence,  and 
the  praises  poured  on  him  had  gained  him  the  epithet  of 
Gaudissart  the  Great.  Wherever  he  made  his  appearance, 
whether  in  a  counting-house  or  an  inn,  in  a  drawing-room  or 
a  diligence,  in  a  garret  or  a  bank,  each  one  would  exclaim  on 
seeing  him,  "Ah,  ha  !  here  is  Gaudissart  the  Great !  " 

Never  was  a  nickname  better  suited  to  the  appearance,  the 
manners,  the  countenance,  the  voice,  or  the  language  of  a 
man.  Everything  smiled  on  the  traveler,  and  he  smiled  on 
all.  Similia  Similibus ;  he  was  for  homoeopathy :  Puns,  a 
horse-laugh,  the  complexion  of  a  jolly  friar,  a  Rabelaisian 
aspect ;  dress,  mien,  character,  and  face  combined  to  give  his 
whole  person  a  stamp  of  jollification  and  ribaldry. 

Blunt  in  business,  good-natured  and  capital  fun,  you  would 
have  known  him  at  once  for  a  favorite  of  the  grisette — a  man 
who  can  climb  with  a  grace  to  the  top  of  a  coach,  offer  a  hand 

*  Fancy  notions. 


348  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

to  a  lady  in  difficulties  over  getting  out,  jest  with  the  postillion 
about  his  bandana,  and  sell  him  a  hat ;  smile  at  the  inn-maid, 
taking  her  by  the  waist — or  by  the  fancy  ;  who  at  table  will 
imitate  the  gurgle  of  a  bottle  by  tapping  his  cheek  while  put- 
ting his  tongue  in  it,  knows  how  to  make  beer  go  off  by  draw- 
ing the  air  between  his  lips,  can  hit  a  champagne  glass  a  sharp 
blow  with  a  knife  without  breaking  it,  saying  to  the  others, 
"Can  you  do  that?" — who  chaffs  shy  travelers,  contradicts 
well-informed  men,  is  supreme  at  table,  and  secures  all  the 
best  bits. 

A  clever  man,  too,  he  could  on  occasion  put  aside  all  such 
pleasantries  and  look  very  serious  when,  throwing  away  the 
end  of  his  cigar,  he  would  look  out  on  a  town  and  say,  "I 
mean  to  see  what  the  folk  here  are  made  of."  Then  Gaudis- 
sart  was  the  most  cunning  and  shrewd  of  ambassadors.  He 
knew  how  to  be  the  official  with  the  prefect,  the  capitalist  with 
the  banker,  orthodox  and  monarchical  with  the  Royalist,  the 
blunt  citizen  with  the  citizen — in  short,  all  things  to  all 
men,  just  what  he  ought  to  be  wherever  he  went,  leaving 
Gaudissart  outside  the  door,  and  finding  him  again  as  he  went 
out. 

Until  1830  Gaudissart  the  Great  remained  faithful  to  the 
Article  Paris.  This  line  of  business,  in  all  its  branches,  ap- 
pealing to  the  greater  number  of  human  fancies,  had  enabled 
him  to  study  the  secrets  of  the  heart,  had  taught  him  the  uses 
of  his  persuasive  eloquence,  the  way  to  open  the  most  closely 
tied  money-bags,  to  incite  the  fancy  of  wives  and  husbands, 
of  children  and  servants,  and  to  persuade  them  to  gratify  it. 
None  so  well  as  he  knew  how  to  lure  a  dealer  by  the  tempta- 
tions of  a  job,  and  to  turn  away  at  the  moment  when  his  desire 
for  the  bait  was  at  a  climax.  He  acknowledged  his  indebted- 
ness to  the  hatter's  trade,  saying  that  it  was  by  studying  the 
outside  of  the  head  that  he  had  learned  to  understand  its  in- 
side, that  he  was  accustomed  to  find  caps  to  fit  folk,  to  throw 


GAUD1SSART  THE    GREAT.  349 

himself  at  their  head,  and  so  forth.     His  jests  on  hats  were 
inexhaustible. 

Nevertheless,  after  the  August  and  October  of  1830,  he 
gave  up  traveling  in  hats  and  the  Article  Paris,  and  left  off 
trading  in  all  things  mechanical  and  visible  to  soar  in  the 
loftier  spheres  of  Parisian  enterprise.  He  had  given  up  matter 
for  mind,  as  he  himself  said,  and  manufactured  products  for 
the  infinitely  more  subtle  outcome  of  the  intellect. 

This  needs  explanation. 

The  stir  and  upset  of  1830  gave  rise,  as  everybody  knows, 
to  the  new  birth  of  various  antiquated  ideas  which  skillful 
speculators  strove  to  rejuvenate.  After  1830  ideas  were  more 
than  ever  a  marketable  commodity;  and,  as  was  once  said  by 
a  writer  who  is  clever  enough  to  publish  nothing,  more  ideas 
than  pocket-handkerchiefs  are  filched  nowadays.  Some  day, 
perhaps,  there  may  be  an  Exchange  for  ideas ;  but  even  now, 
good  or  bad,  ideas  have  their  price,  are  regarded  as  a  crop 
imported,  transferred,  and  sold,  can  be  realized,  and  are 
viewed  as  an  investment.  When  there  are  no  ideas  in  the 
market,  speculators  try  to  bring  words  into  fashion,  to  give 
them  the  consistency  of  an  idea,  and  live  on  those  words  as 
birds  live  on  millet. 

Nay,  do  not  laugh  !  A  word  is  as  good  as  an  idea  in  a 
country  where  the  ticket  on  the  bale  is  thought  more  of  than 
the  contents.  Have  we  not  seen  the  book-trade  thriving  on 
the  word  "picturesque"  when  literature  had  sealed  the  doom 
of  the  word  "  fantastic." 

Consequently,  the  excise  has  levied  a  tax  on  the  intellect; 
it  has  exactly  measured  the  acreage  of  advertisements,  has 
assessed  the  prospectus,  and  weighed  thought — Rue  de  la  Paix 
Hotel  tlu  Timbre  (the  Stamp  Office).  On  being  constituted 
taxable  goods,  the  intellect  and  its  products  were  bound  to 
obey  the  method  used  in  manufacturing  undertakings.  Thus 
the  ideas  conceived  after  drinking  in  the  brain  of  some  of 
those  apparently  idle  Parisians  who  do  battle  on  intellectual 


350  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

ground  while  emptying  a  bottle  or  carving  a  pheasant's  thigh, 
were  handed  over  the  day  after  their  mental  birth  to  com- 
mercial travelers,  whose  business  it  was  to  set  forth,  with  due 
skill,  urbi  et  orbi,  the  fried  bacon  of  advertisement  and  pros- 
pectus by  which  the  departmental  mouse  is  tempted  into  the 
editor's  trap,  and  becomes  known  in  the  vulgar  tongue  as  a 
subscriber,  or  a  shareholder,  a  corresponding  member,  or, 
perhaps,  a  backer  or  a  part  owner — and  being  always  a  flat. 

"What  a  flat  I  am!"  has  more  than  one  poor  investor 
exclaimed  after  being  tempted  by  the  prospect  of  founding 
something,  which  has  finally  proved  to  be  the  founding  that 
melts  down  some  thousand  or  twelve  hundred  francs. 

"  Subscribers  are  the  fools  who  cannot  understand  that  it 
costs  more  to  forge  ahead  in  the  realm  of  intellect  than  to 
travel  all  over  Europe,"  is  the  speculator's  view. 

So  there  is  a  constant  struggle  going  on  between  the  dilatory 
public  which  declines  to  pay  the  Paris  taxes  and  the  collectors 
who,  living  on  their  percentages,  baste  that  public  with  new 
ideas,  lard  it  with  undertakings,  roast  it  with  prospectuses, 
spit  it  on  flattery,  and  at  last  eat  it  up  with  some  new  sauce 
in  which  it  gets  caught  and  intoxicated  like  a  fly  in  molasses. 
What  has  not  been  done  in  France  since  1830  to  stimulate 
the  zeal,  the  conceit  of  the  intelligent  and  progressive  masses? 
Titles,  medals,  diplomas,  a  sort  of  Legion  of  Honor,  invented 
for  the  vulgar  martyrs,  have  crowded  on  each  other's  heels. 
And  then  every  manufacturer  of  intellectual  commodities  has 
discovered  a  spice,  a  special  condiment,  his  particular  make- 
weight. Hence  the  promises  of  premiums  and  of  anticipated 
dividends;  hence  the  advertisements  of  celebrated  names 
without  the  knowledge  of  the  hapless  artists  who  own  them, 
and  thus  find  themselves  implicated  unawares  in  more  under- 
takings than  there  are  days  in  the  year ;  for  the  law  could 
not  foresee  this  theft  of  names.  Hence,  too,  this  rape  of 
ideas  which  the  contractors  for  public  intelligence — like  the 
slave  merchants  of  the  East — snatch  from  the  paternal  brain 


GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT.  361 

at  a  tender  age,  and  strip  and  parade  before  the  greenhorn, 
their  bewildered  Sultan  the  terrible  public,  who,  if  not 
amused,  beheads  them  by  stopping  their  rations  of  gold. 

This  mania  of  the  day  reacted  on  Gaudissart  the  Great, 
and  this  was  how  :  A  company  gotten  up  to  effect  insurances 
on  life  and  properly  heard  of  his  irresistible  eloquence  and 
offered  him  extraordinarily  handsome  terms,  which  he  ac- 
cepted. The  bargain  concluded,  the  compact  signed,  the 
drummer  was  weaned  of  the  past  under  the  eye  of  the  secre- 
tary of  the  society,  who  freed  Gaudissart's  mind  of  its 
swaddling-clothes,  explained  the  dark  corners  of  the  business, 
taught  him  its  lingo,  showed  him  all  the  mechanism  bit  by 
bit,  anatomized  the  particular  class  of  the  public  on  whom  he 
was  to  work,  stuffed  him  with  cant  phrases,  crammed  him 
with  repartees,  stocked  him  with  peremptory  arguments,  and, 
so  to  speak,  put  an  edge  on  the  tongue  that  was  to  operate  on 
life  in  France.  The  puppet  responded  admirably  to  the  care 
lavished  on  him  by  Monsieur  the  Secretary. 

The  directors  of  the  insurance  company  were  so  loud  in 
their  praises  of  Gaudissart  the  Great,  showed  him  so  much 
attention,  put  the  talents  of  this  living  prospectus  in  so  favor- 
able a  light  in  the  higher  circles  of  banking  and  of  intellec- 
tual diplomacy,  that  the  financial  managers  of  two  news- 
papers, then  living  but  since  dead,  thought  of  employing  him 
to  tout  for  subscriptions.  The  "Globe,"  the  organ  of  the 
doctrines  of  Saint-Simon,  and  the  "  Mouvement,"  a  Repub- 
lican paper,  invited  Gaudissart  the  Great  to  their  private 
offices  and  promised  him,  each,  ten  francs  a  head  on  every 
subscriber  if  he  secured  a  thousand,  but  only  five  francs  a 
head  if  he  could  catch  no  more  than  five  hundred.  As  the 
line  of  the  political  paper  did  not  interfere  with  that  of  the 
insurance  company,  the  bargain  was  concluded.  At  the 
same  time,  Gaudissart  demanded  an  indemnity  of  five  hun- 
dred francs  for  the  week  he  must  spend  in  "getting  up  "  the 
doctrine  of  Saint-Simon,  pointing  out  what  efforts  of  memory 


352  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

and  brain  would  be  necessary  to  enable  him  to  become  thor- 
oughly conversant  with  this  article,  and  to  talk  of  it  so  coher- 
ently as  to  avoid,  said  he,  "  putting  his  foot  in  it." 

He  made  no  claim  on  the  Republicans.  In  the  first  place, 
he  himself  had  a  leaning  to  Republican  notions — the  only 
views  according  to  the  Gaudissart  philosophy  that  could  bring 
about  rational  equality ;  and  then  Gaudissart  had  ere  now- 
dabbled  in  the  plots  of  the  French  carbonari  (Nativists  and 
Extreme  Democrats).  He  had  even  been  arrested,  but  re- 
leased for  lack  of  evidence  ;  and,  finally,  he  pointed  out  to 
the  backers  of  the  paper  that  since  July  he  had  allowed  his 
mustache  to  grow,  and  that  he  now  only  needed  a  particular 
shape  of  cap  and  long  spurs  to  be  representative  of  the  Re- 
public. 

So  for  a  week  he  went  every  morning  to  be  Saint-Simonized 
at  the  "Globe"  office,  and  every  evening  he  haunted  the 
bureau  of  the  insurance  company  to  learn  the  elegancies  of 
financial  slang.  His  aptitude  and  memory  were  so  good  that 
he  was  ready  to  start  by  the  15  th  of  April,  the  date  at  which 
he  usually  set  out  on  his  first  annual  circuit. 

Two  large  commercial  houses,  alarmed  at  the  downward 
tendency  of  trade,  tempted  the  ambitious  Gaudissart  still  to 
undertake  their  agency,  and  the  King  of  Commercial  Trav- 
elers showed  his  clemency  in  consideration  of  old  friendship 
and  of  the  enormous  percentage  he  was  to  take. 

"  Listen  to  me,  my  little  Jenny,"  said  he,  riding  in  a  hack 
with  a  pretty  little  flower-maker. 

Every  truly  great  man  loves  to  be  tyrannized  over  by  some 
feeble  creature,  and  Jenny  was  Gaudissart's  tyrant ;  he  was 
seeing  her  home  at  eleven  o'clock  from  the  Gymnase  theatre, 
where  he  had  taken  her  in  full  dress  to  a  private  box  on  the 
first  tier. 

"  When  I  come  back,  Jenny,  I  will  furnish  your  room  quite 
elegantly.  That  gawky  Mathilde,  who  makes  you  sick  with 
her  innuendoes,  her  real  Indian  shawls  brought  by  the  Rus- 


GAUD ISS ART    THE    GREAT.  353 

sian  ambassador's  messengers,  her  silver-gilt,  and  her  Russian 
Prince — who  is,  it  strikes  me,  a  rank  humbug — even  she  shall 
not  find  a  fault  in  it.  I  will  devote  all  the  '  Children  '  I  can 
get  in  the  provinces  to  the  decoration  of  your  room." 

"Well,  that  is  a  nice  story,  I  must  say,"  cried  the  florist. 
"  What,  you  monster  of  a  man,  you  talk  to  me  so  coolly  of 
your  children  !  Do  you  suppose  that  I  will  put  up  with  any- 
thing of  that  kind  ?" 

"  Pshaw  !  Jenny,  are  you  out  of  your  wits  ?  It  is  a  way  of 
talking  in  my  line  of  business." 

"A  pretty  line  of  business  indeed  !  " 

"  Well,  but  listen  ;  if  you  go  on  talking  so  much,  you  will 
find  yourself  in  the  right." 

"  I  choose  always  to  be  in  the  right  !  I  may  say  you  are  a 
cool  hand  to-night." 

u  You  will  not  let  me  say  what  I  have  to  say?  I  have  to 
push  a  most  capital  idea,  a  magazine  that  is  to  be  brought  out 
for  children.  In  our  walk  of  life  a  traveler,  when  he  has 
worked  up  a  town  and  got,  let  us  say,  ten  subscriptions  to  the 
'  Children's  Magazine,'  says  I  have  gotten  ten  '  Children  ; '  just 
as,  if  I  had  ten  subscriptions  to  the  '  Mouvement,'  I  should 
simply  say  I  have  gotten  ten  '  Mouvements.'  Now  do  you  un- 
derstand ?" 

"A  pretty  thing  too  !  So  you  are  meddling  in  politics? 
I  can  see  you  already  in  Sainte-Pelagie,  and  shall  have  to  trot 
there  to  see  you  every  day.  Oh,  when  we  love  a  man,  my 
word  !  If  we  knew  what  we  are  in  for,  we  should  leave  you 
to  manage  for  yourselves,  you  men  !  Well,  well,  you  are 
going  to-morrow,  don't  let  us  get  the  black  dog  on  our 
shoulders  ;  it  is  too  silly." 

The  cab  drew  up  before  a  pretty  house,  newly  built,  in  the 
Rue  d'Artois,  where  Gaudissart  and  Jenny  went  up  to  the 
fourth  floor.  Here  resided  Mademoiselle  Jenny  Courand, 
who  was  commonly  supposed  to  have  been  privately  married 
to  Gaudissart,  a  report  which  the  traveler  did  not  deny.  To 
23 


354  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

maintain  her  power  over  him,  Jenny  Courand  compelled  him 
to  pay  her  a  thousand  little  attentions,  always  threatening  to 
abandon  him  to  his  fate  if  he  failed  in  the  least  of  them. 
Gaudissart  was  to  write  to  her  from  each  town  he  stopped  at 
and  give  an  account  of  every  action. 

"And  how  many  '  Children  '  will  you  want  to  furnish  my 
room?"  said  she,  throwing  off  her  shawl  and  sitting  down 
by  a  good  fire. 

"  I  get  five  sous  on  each  subscription." 

"  A  pretty  joke  !  Do  you  expect  to  make  me  a  rich  woman 
— five  sous  at  a  time  ?  Unless  you  are  a  wandering  Jew  and 
have  your  pocket  sewn  up  tight." 

"But,  Jenny,  I  shall  get  thousands  of  'Children.'  Just 
think,  the  little  ones  have  never  had  a  paper  of  their  own. 
However,  I  am  a  great  simpleton  to  try  to  explain  the  econ- 
omy of  business  to  you — you  understand  nothing  about  such 
matters." 

"  And  pray,  then,  Gaudissart,  if  I  am  such  a  gaby,  why  do 
you  love  me  ?  " 

"Because  you  are  such  a  sublime  gaby!  Listen,  Jenny. 
You  see,  if  I  can  get  people  to  take  the  '  Globe '  and  the 
'  Mouvement,'  and  to  pay  their  insurances,  instead  of  earning 
a  miserable  eight  or  ten  thousand  francs  a  year  by  trundling 
around  like  a  man  in  a  show,  I  may  make  twenty  to  thirty 
thousand  francs  out  of  one  round." 

"Unlace  my  stays,  Gaudissart,  and  pull  straight — don't 
drag  me  askew." 

"And  then,"  said  the  commercial  traveler,  as  he  admired 
the  girl's  satin  shoulders,  "  I  shall  be  a  shareholder  in  the 
papers,  like  Finot,  a  friend  of  mine,  the  son  of  a  hatter,  who 
has  thirty  thousand  francs  a  year,  and  will  get  himself  made 
a  peer !  And  when  you  think  of  little  Popinot !  By  the 
way,  I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  Monsieur  Popinot  was  yesterday 
made  minister  of  commerce.  Why  should  not  I,  too,  be 
ambitious?     Ah,   ha!     I  could  easily  catch  the  cant  of  the 


GAUDISSART  THE   GREAT.  355 

Tribune,  and  I  might  be  made  a  minister — something  like  a 
minister,  too  !     Just  listen — 

"  '  Gentlemen,'  "  and  he  took  his  stand  behind  an  armchair, 
"  '  the  press  is  not  a  mere  tool,  nor  a  mere  trade.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  the  politician,  the  press  is  an  institution. 
Now  we  are  absolutely  required  here  to  take  the  political  view 
of  things,  hence  '  " — he  paused  for  breath — "  '  hence  we  are 
bound  to  inquire  whether  it  is  useful  or  mischievous,  whether 
it  should  be  encouraged  or  repressed,  whether  it  should  be 
taxed  or  free — serious  questions  all.  I  believe  I  shall  not  be 
wasting  the  precious  moments  of  this  Chamber  by  investigating 
this  article  and  showing  you  the  conditions  of  the  case.  We 
are  walking  on  to  a  precipice.  The  laws  indeed  are  not  so 
guarded  as  they  should  be ' 

"How  is  that?"  said  he,  looking  at  Jenny.  "Every 
orator  says  that  France  is  marching  toward  a  precipice ;  they 
either  say  that  or  they  talk  of  the  chariot  of  the  State  and 
political  tempest  and  clouds  on  the  horizon.  Don't  I  know 
every  shade  of  color !  I  know  the  dodges  of  every  trade. 
And  do  you  know  why  ?  I  was  born  with  a  caul  on.  My  old 
grandmother  kept  the  caul,  and  I  will  give  it  to  you.  So, 
you  see,  I  shall  soon  be  in  power  !  " 

"You?" 

"  Why  shouldn't  I  be  Baron  Gaudissart  and  Peer  of  France  ? 
Has  not  Monsieur  Popinot  been  twice  returned  deputy  for  the 
fourth  arrondissement  ?  And  he  dines  with  Louis-Philippe. 
Finot  is  to  be  a  councilor  of  State,  they  say.  Oh  !  if  only  they 
»  would  send  me  to  London  as  ambassador,  I  am  the  man  to  non- 
plus the  English,  I  can  tell  you.  Nobody  has  ever  caught  Gaud- 
issart napping — Gaudissart  the  Great.  No,  no  one  has  ever  got- 
ten the  better  of  me,  and  no  one  ever  shall  in  any  line,  politics 
or  impolitics,  here  or  anywhere.  But  for  the  present  I  must 
give  my  mind  to  insuring  property,  to  the  'Globe,'  to  the 
'Mouvement,'  to  the  'Children's'  paper,  and  to  the  'Article 
de  Paris.'  " 


356  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

"  You  will  be  caught  over  your  newspapers.  I  will  lay  a 
wager  that  you  will  not  get  as  far  as  Poitiers  without  being 
done." 

"  I  am  ready  to  bet,  my  jewel." 

"A  shawl!  " 

"  Done.  If  I  lose  the  shawl,  I  will  go  back  to  trade  and 
hats.     But,  get  the  better  of  Gaud  issart  ?     Never!  never!" 

And  the  illustrious  commercial  traveler  struck  an  attitude  in 
front  of  Jenny,  looking  at  her  haughtily,  one  hand  in  his 
vest,  and  his  head  half-turned   in  a  Napoleonic  pose. 

"How  absurd  you  are!  What  have  you  been  eating  this 
evening  !  " 

Gaudissart  was  a  man  of  eight-and-thirty,  of  middle  height, 
burly  and  fat,  as  a  man  is  who  is  accustomed  to  go  about  in 
mail-coaches ;  his  face  was  as  round  as  a  pumpkin,  florid,  and 
with  regular  features,  resembling  the  traditional  type  adopted 
by  sculptors  in  every  country  for  their  statues  of  Abundance, 
of  Law,  Force,  Commerce,  and  the  like.  His  prominent 
stomach  was  pear-shaped  and  his  legs  were  thin,  but  he  was 
wiry  and  active.  He  picked  up  Jenny,  who  was  half-undressed, 
and  carried  her  to  her  bed. 

"Hold  your  tongue,  free  woman"  said  he.  "Ah,  you 
don't  know  anything  about  the  free  woman  and  Saint-Simon- 
ism,  and  antagonism,  and  Fourierism,  and  criticism,  and  de- 
termined push — well  it  is — in  short,  it  is  ten  francs  on  every 
subscription,  Madame  Gaudissart." 

"  On  my  honor,  you  are  going  crazy,  Gaudissart." 

"Always  more  and  more  crazy  about  you,"  said  he,  tossing 
his  hat  on  to  the  sofa. 

Next  day,  after  breakfasting  in  style  with  Jenny  Courand, 
Gaudissart  set  out  on  horseback  to  call  in  all  the  market  towns 
which  he  had  been  particularly  instructed  to  work  up  by  the 
various  companies  to  whose  success  he  was  devoting  his  genius. 
After  spending  forty-five  days  in  beating  the  country  lying 
between  Paris  and  Blois,  he  stayed  for  a  fortnight  in  this  little 


GAtJDISSART   THE    GREAT.  357 

city,  devoting  the  time  to  writing  letters  and  visiting  the 
neighboring  towns.  The  day  before  leaving  for  Tours  he 
wrote  to  Mademoiselle  Jenny  Courand  the  following  letter,  of 
which  the  fullness  and  charm  cannot  be  matched  by  any  narra- 
tive, and  which  also  serves  to  prove  the  peculiar  legitimacy 
of  the  ties  that  bound  these  two  persons  together : 

Letter  frotn   Gaudissart  to  Jenny   Courand. 

"  My  dear  Jenny: — I  am  afraid  you  will  lose  your  bet. 
Like  Napoleon,  Gaudissart  has  his  star,  but  will  know  no 
Waterloo.  I  have  triumphed  everywhere  under  the  conditions 
set  forth.  The  insurance  business  is  doing  very  well.  Be- 
tween Paris  and  Blois  I  secured  near  on  two  millions ;  but 
toward  the  middle  of  France  heads  are  remarkably  hard,  and 
millions  infinitely  scarcer.  The  Article  Paris  toddles  on 
nicely,  as  usual ;  it  is  a  ring  on  your  finger.  With  my  usual 
rattle,  I  can  always  come  round  the  storekeepers.  I  got  rid 
of  sixty-two  Ternaux  shawls  at  Orleans ;  but,  on  my  honor,  I 
don't  know  what  they  will  do  with  them  unless  they  put  them 
back  on  the  sheep. 

"As  to  the  newspaper  line,  the  deuce  is  in  it !  that  is  quite 
another  pair  of  shoes.  God  above  us  !  what  a  deal  of  piping 
those  good  people  take  before  they  have  learned  a  new  tune. 
I  have  gotten  no  more  than  sixty-two  '  Mouvements'  so  far; 
and  that  in  my  whole  journey  is  less  than  the  Ternaux  shawls 
in  one  town.  These  rascally  Republicans  won't  subscribe 
at  all;  you  talk  to  them,  and  they  talk;  they  are  quite  of 
your  way  of  thinking,  and  you  are  soon  all  agreed  to  upset 
everything  that  exists.  Do  you  think  the  man  will  fork  out  ? 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  And  if  he  has  three  square  inches  of  ground, 
enough  to  grow  a  dozen  cabbages,  or  wood  enough  to  cut  a 
toothpick,  your  man  will  talk  of  the  settlement  of  landed 
estate,  of  taxation,  and  crops,  and  compensation — a  pack  of 
nonsense,  while  I  waste  my  time  and  spittle  in  patriotism. 


358  GAUDISSART   THE    GREAT. 

Business  is  bad,  and  the  S  Mouvement '  generally  is  dull.  I 
am  writing  to  the  owners  to  say  so.  And  I  am  very  sorry  as 
a  matter  of  opinion. 

"As  to  the  *  Globe,'  that  is  another  story.  If  I  talk  of  the 
new  doctrines  to  men  who  seem  likely  to  have  a  leaning  to 
such  quirks,  you  might  think  it  was  a  proposal  to  burn  their 
house  down.  I  tell  them  that  it  is  the  coming  thing,  the  most 
advantageous  to  their  interests,  the  principle  of  work  by  which 
nothing  is  lost ;  that  men  have  oppressed  men  long  enough, 
that  woman  is  a  slave,  that  we  must  strive  to  secure  the  tri- 
umph of  the  great  Idea  of  thrift,  and  achieve  a  more  rational 
coordination  of  society — in  short,  all  the  rhodomontade  at 
my  command.  All  in  vain  !  As  soon  as  I  "start  on  this  sub- 
ject, these  country  louts  shut  up  their  cupboards  as  if  I  had 
come  to  steal  something,  and  beg  me  to  be  off. 

"  What  fools  these  owls  are  !  The  '  Globe  '  is  nowhere.  I 
told  them  so.  I  said,  '  You  are  too  advanced.  You  are  getting 
forward,  and  that  is  all  very  well ;  but  you  must  have  something 
to  show.  In  the  provinces  they  want  to  see  results.'  However, 
I  have  gotten  a  hundred  'Globes ; '  and,  seeing  the  density  of 
these  country  noodles,  it  is  really  a  miracle.  But  I  promise 
them  such  a  heap  of  fine  things,  that  be  hanged  if  I  know  how 
the  Globules,  or  Globists,  or  Globites,  or  Globians  are  ever 
going  to  give  them.  However,  as  they  assured  me  that  they 
would  arrange  the  world  far  better  than  it  is  arranged  at 
present,  I  lead  the  way  and  prophesy  good  things  at  ten  francs 
per  head. 

"There  is  a  farmer  who  thought  it  must  have  to  do  with 
soils,  by  reason  of  the  name,  and  I  rammed  the  '  Globe  ' 
down  his  throat ;  he  will  take  to  it,  I  feel  sure ;  he  has  a 
prominent  forehead,  and  men  with  prominent  foreheads  are 
always  ideologists. 

"  But  as  to  the  children  !  give  me  the  children.  I  got 
two  thousand  children  between  Paris  and  Blois — a  nice  little 
turn  !     And  there  is  less  waste  of  words.     You  show  the  pic- 


GAUD1SSART   THE    GREAT.  S59 

ture  to  the  mother  on  the  sly,  so  that  the  child  wants  to  see; 
then,  of  course,  the  child  sees;  and  he  tugs  at  mamma's 
skirts  till  he  gets  his  paper,  because  '  Daddy  has  his'n  paper.' 
Mamma's  gown  cost  twenty  francs,  and  she  does  not  want  it 
torn  by  the  brat ;  the  paper  costs  but  six  francs,  that  is 
cheaper ;  so  the  subscription  is  dragged  out.  It  is  capital, 
and  meets  a  real  want — something  between  the  sugar-plum 
and  the  picture-book,  the  two  eternal  cravings  of  childhood. 
And  they  can  read,  too,  these  frenzied  brats. 

"Here,  at  the  table  d'hote,  I  had  a  dispute  about  news- 
papers and  my  opinions.  I  was  sitting,  peacefully  eating,  by 
the  side  of  a  man  in  a  white  hat  who  was  reading  the  '  De- 
bats.'  Said  I  to  myself,  '  I  must  give  him  a  taste  of  my  elo- 
quence. Here  is  a  man  who  is  all  for  the  dynasty  ;  I  must 
try  to  catch  him.  Such  a  triumph  would  be  a  splendid  fore- 
cast of  success  as  a  minister.'  So  I  set  to  work,  beginning  by 
praising  his  paper.  It  was  a  precious  long  job,  I  can  tell 
you.  From  one  thing  to  another  I  began  to  overrule  my 
man,  giving  him  four-horse  speeches,  arguments  in  F  sharp, 
and  all  the  precious  rhodomontade.  Everybody  was  listening, 
and  I  saw  a  man  with  'July'  in  his  mustaches,  ready  to  bite 
for  the  '  Mouvement.'  But,  by  ill-luck,  I  don't  know  how  I 
let  slip  the  word  ganachc  (old  woman).  Away  went  my 
dynastic  white  hat — and  a  bad  hat  too,  a  Lyons  hat,  half-silk 
and  half-cotton — with  the  bit  between  his  teeth  in  a  fury.  So 
I  put  on  my  grand  air — you  know  it — and  I  say  to  him, 
'  Heyday,  monsieur,  you  are  a  hot  pot  !     If  you  are  vexed, 

I  am  ready  to  answer  for  my  words.     I  fought  in  July ' 

'  Though    I   am    the    father   of   a  family,'    says   he,    '  I   am 

ready '     'You  are  the  father  of  a  family,  my  dear  sir,' 

say  I.  'You  have  children?'  'Yes,  monsieur.'  'Of 
eleven?'  'Thereabouts.'  'Well,  then,  monsieur,  "The 
Children's  Magazine  "  is  just  about  to  be  published — six 
francs  per  annum,  one  number  a  month,  two  columns,  contrib- 
utors of  the  highest  literary  rank,  gotten  up  in  the  best  style, 


360  GAUDISSART  THE   GREAT. 

good  paper,  illustrations  from  drawings  by  our  first  artists, 
genuine  India-paper  proofs,  and  colors  that  will  not  fade.' 
And  then  I  give  him  a  broadside.  The  father  is  overpowered ! 
The  squabble  ends  in  a  subscription. 

"  'No  one  but  Gaudissart  can  play  that  game,'  cried  little 
tomtit  Lamard  to  that  long  noodle  Bulot  when  he  told  him 
the  story  at  the  cafe. 

"  To-morrow  I  am  off  to  Amboise.  I  shall  do  Amboise  in 
two  days  and  write  next  from  Tours,  where  I  am  going  to  try 
my  hand  on  the  deadliest  country  from  the  point  of  view  of 
intelligence  and  speculation.  But,  on  the  honor  of  Gaudis- 
sart, they  will  be  done,  they  shall  be  done  !  Done  brown  ! 
By-by,  little  one ;  love  me  long  and  always  be  true  to  me. 
Fidelity  through  thick  and  thin  is  one  of  the  characteristics 
of  the  free  woman.     Who  kisses  your  eyes  ? 

' '  Yours,  Felix  for  ever. ' ' 

Five  days  later  Gaudissart  set  out  one  morning  from  the 
Faisan  hotel,  where  he  put  up  at  Tours,  and  went  to  Vouvray, 
a  rich  and  populous  district  where  the  public  mind  seemed  to 
him  to  be  open  to  conviction.  He  was  trotting  along  the 
river  quay  on  his  nag,  thinking  no  more  of  the  speeches  he 
was  about  to  make  than  an  actor  thinks  of  the  part  he  has 
played  a  hundred  times.  Gaudissart  the  Great  cantered  on, 
admiring  the  landscape,  and  thinking  of  nothing,  never 
dreaming  that  the  happy  valleys  of  Vouvray  were  to  witness 
the  overthrow  of  his  commercial  infallibility. 

It  will  here  be  necessary  to  give  the  reader  some  insight 
into  the  public  spirit  of  Touraine.  The  peculiar  wit  of  a  sly 
romancer,  full  of  banter  and  epigram,  which  stamps  every 
page  of  Rabelais'  work,  is  the  faithful  expression  of  the  Tou- 
rangeau  nature,  of  an  intellect  as  keen  and  polished  as  it  must 
inevitably  be  in  a  province  where  the  Kings  of  France  long 
held  their  court ;  an  ardent,  artistic,  poetical,  and  luxurious 
nature,  but  prompt  to  forget  its  first  impulse.     The  softness 


GAUD1SSART  THE    GREAT.  361 

of  the  atmosphere,  the  beauty  of  the  climate,  a  certain  ease 
of  living  and  simplicity  of  manners,  soon  stifle  the  feeling 
for  art,  narrow  the  most  expansive  heart,  and  corrode  the 
most  tenacious  will. 

Transplant  the  native  of  Touraine,  and  his  qualities  de- 
velop and  lead  to  great  things,  as  has  been  proved  in  the  most 
dissimilar  ways  by  Rabelais  and  by  Semblancay  ;  by  Plantin 
the  printer  and  by  Descartes ;  by  Boucicault,  the  Napoleon 
of  his  day  ;  by  Pinaigrier,  who  painted  the  greater  part  of  our 
cathedral  glass ;  by  Verville  and  Courier.  But,  left  at  home, 
the  countryman  of  Touraine,  so  remarkable  elsewhere,  re- 
mains like  the  Indian  on  his  rug,  like  the  Turk  on  his  divan. 
He  uses  his  wit  to  make  fun  of  his  neighbor,  to  amuse  him- 
self, and  to  live  happy  to  the  end  of  his  days.  Touraine  is 
the  true  Abbey  of  Thelema,  so  mucn  praised  in  Gargantua's 
book.  Consenting  nuns  may  be  found  there,  as  in  the  poet's 
dream,  and  the  good-cheer  sung  so  loudly  by  Rabelais  is 
supreme. 

As  to  his  indolence,  it  is  sublime,  and  well  characterized  in 
the  popular  witticism  :  "  Tourangeau,  will  you  have  some 
broth?"  "Yes."  "Then  bring  your  bowl."  "I  am  no 
longer  hungry." 

Is  it  to  the  glee  of  the  vine-dresser,  to  the  harmonious 
beauty  of  the  loveliest  scenery  in  France,  or  to  the  perennial 
peace  of  a  province  which  has  always  escaped  the  invading 
armies  of  the  foreigner,  that  the  soft  indifference  of  those 
mild  and  easy  habits  is  due  ?  To  this  question  there  is  no 
answer.  Go  yourself  to  that  Turkey  in  France,  and  there 
you  will  stay,  indolent,  idle,  and  happy.  Though  you  were 
as  ambitious  as  Napoleon  or  a  poet  like  Byron,  an  irresistible, 
indescribable  influence  would  compel  you  to  keep  your  poetry 
to  yourself  and  reduce  your  most  ambitious  schemes  to  day- 
dreams. 

Gaudissart  the  Great  was  fated  to  meet  in  Vouvray  one  of 
those  indigenous  wags  whose  mockery  is  offensive    only  by 


362  GAUDISSART   THE    GREAT. 

its  absolute  perfection  of  fun,  and  with  whom  he  had  a  deadly 
battle.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  your  Tourangeau  likes  to  come 
into  his  father's  property.  Hence  the  doctrines  of  Saint- 
Simon  were  held  particularly  odious,  and  heartily  abused  in 
those  parts;  still,  only  as  things  are  hated  and  abused  in 
Touraine,  with  the  disdain  and  lofty  pleasantry  worthy  of  the 
land  of  good  stories  and  jokes  played  between  neighbors — a 
spirit  which  is  vanishing  day  by  day  before  what  Lord  Byron 
called  English  cant. 

After  putting  up  his  horse  at  the  Soleil  d'Or,  kept  by  one 
Mitouflet,  a  discharged  grenadier  of  the  Imperial  Guard,  who 
had  married  a  wealthy  mistress  of  vinelands,  and  to  whose 
care  he  solemnly  confided  his  steed,  Gaudissart,  for  his 
sins,  went  first  to  the  prime  wit  of  Vouvray,  the  life  and 
soul  of  the  district,  the  jester  whose  reputation  and  nature 
alike  made  it  incumbent  on  him  to  keep  his  neighbors' 
spirits  up.  This  rustic  Figaro,  a  retired  dyer,  was  the  happy 
possessor  of  seven  or  eight  thousand  francs  a  year,  of  a  pretty 
house  on  the  slope  of  a  hill,  of  a  plump  little  wife,  and  of 
robust  health.  For  ten  years  past  he  had  had  nothing  to  do 
but  to  take  care  of  his  garden  and  his  wife,  to  get  his  daughter 
married,  to  play  his  game  of  an  evening,  to  keep  himself  in> 
formed  of  all  the  scandal  that  came  within  his  jurisdiction,  to 
give  trouble  at  elections,  to  squabble  with  the  great  land- 
owners, and  arrange  big  dinners  ;  to  air  himself  on  the  quay, 
inquire  what  was  going  on  in  the  town,  and  bother  the  priest ; 
and,  for  dramatic  interest,  to  look  out  for  the  sale  of  a  plot  of 
ground  that  cut  into  the  ring  fence  of  his  vineyard.  In  short, 
he  lived  the  life  of  Touraine,  the  usual  life  of  a  small  country 
town. 

At  the  same  time,  he  was  the  most  important  of  the  minor 
notabilities  of  the  place  and  the  leader  of  the  small  proprie- 
tors— a  jealous  and  envious  class,  chewing  the  cud  of  slander 
and  calumny  against  the  aristocracy,  and  repeating  them  with 
relish,  grinding  everything  down  to  one  level,  hostile  to  every 


GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT.  363 

form  of  superiority,  scorning  it,  indeed,  with  the  admirable 
coolness  of  ignorance. 

Monsieur  Vernier — so  this  little  great  man  of  the  place  was 
named — was  finishing  his  breakfast,  between  his  wife  and  his 
daughter,  when  Gaudissart  made  his  appearance  in  the  dining- 
room — one  of  the  most  cheerful  dining-rooms  for  miles  around, 
with  a  view  from  the  windows  over  the  Loire  and  the  Cher. 

"  Is  it  to  Monsieur  Vernier  himself  that  I  now  have  the 

honor ?"  said  the  traveler,  bending  his  vertebral  column 

with  so  much  grace  that  it  seemed  to  be  elastic. 

"  Yes,  monsieur,"  said  the  wily  dyer,  interrupting  him  with 
a  scrutinizing  glance,  by  which  he  at  once  took  the  measure 
of  the  man  he  had  to  do  with. 

"  I  have  come,  monsieur,"  Gaudissart  went  on,  "  to  request 
the  assistance  of  vour  enlightenment  to  direct' me  in  this  dis- 
trict  where,  as  I  learn  from  Mitoufiet,  you  exert  the  greatest 
influence.  I  am  an  emissary,  monsieur,  to  this  department 
in  behalf  of  an  undertaking  of  the  highest  importance,  backed 
by  bankers  who  are  anxious " 

"Anxious  to  swindle  us!"  said  Vernier,  laughing,  long 
since  used  to  deal  with  the  commercial  traveler  and  to  follow 
his  game. 

"Just  so,"  replied  Gaudissart  the  Great  with  perfect  impu- 
dence. "But,  as  you  very  well  know,  sir,  since  you  are  so 
clear-sighted,  people  are  not  to  be  swindled  unless  they  think 
it  to  their  interest  to  allow  themselves  to  be  swindled.  I  beg 
you  will  not  take  me  for  one  of  the  common  ruck  of  commer- 
cial gentlemen  who  trust  to  cunning  or  importunity  to  win 
success.  I  am  no  longer  a  traveler ;  I  was  one,  monsieur,  and 
I  glory  in  it.  But  I  have  now  a  mission  of  supreme  import- 
ance, which  ought  to  make  every  man  of  superior  mind  regard 
me  as  devoted  to  the  enlightenment  of  his  fellow-countrymen. 
Be  kind  enough  to  hear  me,  monsieur,  and  you  will  find  that 
you  will  have  profited  greatly  by  the  half-hour's  conversation 
I  beg  you  to  grant  me.     The  great  Paris  bankers  have  not 


364  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

merely  lent  their  names  to  this  concern,  as  to  certain  dis- 
creditable speculations  such  as  I  call  mere  rat-traps.  No,  no, 
nothing  of  the  kind.  I  can  assure  you,  I  would  never  allow 
myself  to  engage  in  promoting  such  booby-traps.  No,  mon- 
sieur, the  soundest  and  most  respectable  houses  in  Paris  are 
concerned  in  the  undertaking,  both  as  shareholders  and  as 
guarantors " 

And  Gaudissart  unrolled  the  frippery  of  his  phrases,  while 
Monsieur  Vernier  listened  with  an  affectation  of  interest  that 
quite  deceived  the  orator.  But  at  the  word. guarantor,  Vernier 
had,  in  fact,  ceased  to  heed  this  drummer's  rhetoric ;  he  was 
bent  on  playing  him  some  sly  trick,  so  as  to  clear  off  this  kind 
of  Parisian  caterpillar,  once  for  all,  from  a  district  justly  re- 
garded as  barbarian  by  speculators,  who  can  get  no  footing 
there. 

At  the  head  of  a  delightful  valley,  known  as  the  Vallee 
coquette  (coquette's  valley),  from  its  curves  and  bends,  new  at 
every  step,  and  each  more  charming  than  the  last,  whether 
you  go  up  or  down  the  winding  slope,  there  dwelt,  in  a  little 
house  surrounded  by  a  vineyard,  a  more  than  half-crazy  crea- 
ture named  Margaritis.  This  man,  an  Italian  by  birth,  was 
married,  but  had  no  children,  and  his  wife  took  care  of  him 
with  a  degree  of  courage  that  was  universally  admired  ;  for 
Madame  Margaritis  certainly  ran  some  risk  in  living  with  a 
man  who,  among  other  manias,  insisted  on  always  having  two 
long  knives  about  him,  not  unfrequently  threatening  her  with 
them.  But  who  does  not  know  the  admirable  devotion  with 
which  country  people  care  for  afflicted  creatures,  perhaps  in 
consequence  of  the  discredit  that  attaches  to  a  middle-class 
wife  if  she  abandons  her  child  or  her  husband  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  a  public  asylum  ?  Again,  the  aversion  is  well 
known  which  country  folk  feel  for  paying  a  hundred  louis, 
or  perhaps  a  thousand  crowns,  the  price  charged  at  Charenton 
or  in  a  private  asylum.  If  any  one  spoke  to  Madame  Mar- 
garitis of  Dubuisson,  Esquirol,  Blanche,  or  other  mad-doctors, 


GAUDISSART   THE    GREAT.  365 

she  preferred,  with  lofty  indignation,  to  keep  her  three  thou- 
sand francs  and  her  good  man. 

The  inexplicable  caprices  of  this  worthy's  insanity  being 
closely  connected  with  the  course  of  my  story,  it  is  needful 
to  mention  some  of  his  more  conspicuous  vagaries.  Margaritis 
would  always  go  out  as  soon  as  it  began  to  rain,  to  walk  bare- 
headed among  his  vines.  Indoors  he  was  perpetually  asking 
for  the  newspaper  ;  just  to  satisfy  him,  his  wife  or  the  maid- 
servant would  give  him  an  old  "Journal  d'Indre-et-Loire," 
and  for  seven  years  he  had  never  discovered  that  it  was  al- 
ways the  same  copy.  A  doctor  might  perhaps  have  found 
it  interesting  to  note  the  connection  between  his  attacks  of 
asking  for  the  paper  and  the  variations  in  the  weather.  The 
poor  madman's  constant  occupation  was  to  study  the  state  of 
the  sky  and  its  effect  on  the  vines. 

When  his  wife  had  company,  which  was  almost  every  even- 
ing— for  the  neighbors,  in  pity  for  her  position,  came  in  to 
play  boston  with  her — Margaritis  sat  in  silence  in  a  corner, 
never  moving  ;  but  when  ten  o'clock  struck  by  a  clock  in  a 
tall  wooden  case,  he  rose  at  the  last  stroke  with  the  mechanical 
precision  of  the  figures  moved  by  a  spring  in  a  German  toy, 
went  slowly  up  to  the  card-players,  looked  at  them  with  eyes 
strangely  like  the  automatic  gaze  of  the  Greeks  and  Turks  to 
be  seen  in  the  Boulevard  du  Temple  in  Paris,  and  said,  "Go 
away  !  ' ' 

At  times,  however,  this  man  recovered  his  natural  wits 
and  could  then  advise  his  wife  very  shrewdly  as  to  the  sale  of 
her  wine ;  but  at  those  times  he  was  exceedingly  troublesome, 
stealing  dainties  out  of  the  cupboards  and  eating  them  in 
secret. 

Occasionally  when  the  customary  visitors  came  in  he  an- 
swered their  inquiries  civily,  but  he  more  often  replied  quite 
at  random.  To  a  lady  who  asked  him,  "  How  are  you  to- 
day, Monsieur  Margaritis?"  "I  have  shaved,"  he  would 
reply,  "  and  you  ?  " 


366  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

"Are  you  better,  monsieur?"  another  would  say.  "Jeru- 
salem !  Jerusalem  !  "  was  the  answer.  But  he  usually  looked 
at  them  with  a  blank  face,  not  speaking  a  word,  and  then  his 
wife  would  say,  "The  goodman  cannot  hear  anything  to- 
day." Twice  or  thrice  in  the  course  of  five  years,  always 
about  the  time  of  the  equinox,  he  had  flown  into  a  rage  at 
this  remark,  had  drawn  a  knife,  and  shrieked,  "That  hussy 
disgraces  me!" 

Still,  he  drank,  ate,  and  walked  out  like  any  man  in  perfect 
health  ;  and  by  degrees  every  one  was  accustomed  to  pay  him 
no  more  respect  or  attention  than  if  he  had  been  a  clumsy 
piece  of  furniture. 

Of  all  his  eccentricities,  there  was  one  to  which  no  one  had 
ever  been  able  to  discover  a  clue ;  for  the  wise  heads  of  the 
district  had  in  the  course  of  time  accounted  for,  or  explained, 
most  of  the  poor  lunatic's  maddest  acts.  He  insisted  on  al- 
ways having  a  sack  of  flour  in  the  house,  and  on  keeping  two 
casks  of  wine  from  the  vintage,  never  allowing  any  one  to 
touch  either  the  flour  or  the  wine.  But,  when  the  month  of 
June  came  round,  he  began  to  be  anxious  to  sell  the  sack  and 
the  wine-barrels  with  all  the  fretfulness  of  a  madman.  Mad- 
ame Margaritis  generally  told  him  that  she  had  sold  the  two 
puncheons  at  an  exorbitant  price,  and  gave  him  the  money, 
which  he  then  hid  without  his  wife  or  his  servant  ever  having 
succeeded,  even  by  watching,  in  discovering  the  hiding-place. 

The  day  before  Gaudissart's  visit  to  Vouvray,  Madame 
Margaritis  had  had  more  difficulty  than  ever  in  managing  her 
husband,  who  had  an  attack  of  lucid  reason. 

"I  declare  I  do  not  know  how  I  shall  get  through  to- 
morrow," said  she  to  Madame  Vernier.  "Only  fancy,  my 
old  man  insisted  on  seeing  his  two  casks  of  wine.  And  he 
gave  me  no  peace  all  day  till  I  showed  him  two  full  puncheons. 
Our  neighbor,  Pierre  Champlain,  luckily  had  two  casks  he 
had  not  been  able  to  sell,  and  at  my  request  he  rolled  them 
into  our  cellar.     And   then  what  must  he  want,  after  seeing 


GAUDISSART   THE    GREAT.  367 

the  casks,  but  nothing  will  content  him  but  selling  them 
himself." 

Madame  Vernier  had  just  been  telling  her  husband  of  this 
difficult  state  of  things  when  Gaudissart  walked  in.  At  the 
commercial  traveler's  very  first  words  Vernier  determined  to 
let  him  loose  on  old  Margaritis. 

"  Monsieur,"  replied  the  dyer,  when  Gaudissart  the  Great 
had  exhausted  his  first  broadside,  "  I  will  not  conceal  from 
you  that  your  undertaking  will  meet  with  great  obstacles 
in  this  district.  In  our  part  of  the  world  the  good  folk  go 
on,  bodily,  in  a  way  of  their  own  ;  it  is  a  country  where  no 
new  idea  can  ever  take  root.  We  live  as  our  fathers  did, 
amusing  ourselves  by  eating  four  meals  a  day,  occupying  our- 
selves by  looking  after  our  vineyards,  and  selling  our  wine 
at  a  good  price.  Our  notion  of  business  is,  very  honestly,  to 
sell  things  for  more  than  they  cost.  We  shall  go  on  in  that 
rut,  and  neither  God  nor  the  devil  can  get  us  out  of  it.  But 
I  will  give  you  some  good  advice,  and  good  advice  is  worth 
an  eye.  We  have  in  this  neighborhood  a  retired  banker,  in 
whose  judgment  I  myself  have  the  utmost  confidence,  and  if 
you  win  his  support  you  shall  have  mine.  If  your  proposals 
offer  any  substantial  prospects,  and  we  are  convinced  of  it, 
Monsieur  Margaritis'  vote  carries  mine  with  it,  and  there  are 
twenty  well-to-do  houses  in  Vouvray  where  purses  will  be 
opened  and  your  panacea  will  be  tried." 

As  she  heard  him  mention  the  madman,  Madame  Vernier 
looked  up  at  her  husband. 

"  By  the  way,  I  believe  my  wife  was  just  going  to  call  on 
Madame  Margaritis  with  a  neighbor  of  ours.  Wait  a  minute, 
and  the  ladies  will  show  you  the  way.  You  can  go  round 
and  pick  up  Madame  Fontanieu,"  said  the  old  dyer  with  a 
wink  at  his  wife. 

This  suggestion  that  she  should  take  with  her  the  merriest, 
the  most  voluble,  the  most  facetious  of  all  the  merry  wives  of 
Vouvray,  was  as  much  as  to  tell  Madame  Vernier  to  secure  a 


368  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

witness  to  report  the  scene  which  would  certainly  take  place 
between  the  drummer  and  the  lunatic,  so  as  to  amuse  the 
country  with  it  for  a  month  to  come.  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Vernier  played  their  parts  so  well  that  Gaudissart  had  no  sus- 
picions and  rushed  headlong  into  the  snare.  He  politely 
offered  his  arm  to  Madame  Vernier  and  fancied  he  had  quite 
made  a  conquest  of  both  ladies  on  the  way,  being  dazzlingly 
witty,  and  pelting  them  with  waggery  and  puns  which  they 
did  not  understand. 

The  so-called  banker  lived  in  the  first  house  at  the  opening 
into  the  Vallee  coquette.  It  was  called  la  Fuye,  and  was  not 
particularly  remarkable.  On  the  first  floor  was  a  large  paneled 
sitting-room,  with  a  bedroom  on  each  side  for  the  master  and 
mistress.  The  entrance  was  through  a  hall,  where  they  dined, 
opening  into  the  kitchen.  This  first  floor,  quite  lacking  the 
external  elegance  for  which  even  the  humblest  dwellings  in 
Touraine  are  noted,  was  crowned  by  attics,  to  which  an  out- 
side stair  led  up,  built  against  one  of  the  gable  ends,  and 
covered  in  by  a  lean-to  roof.  A  small  garden,  full  of  mari- 
golds, seringa,  and  alders,  divided  the  house  from  the  vine- 
yard. Round  the  courtyard  were  the  buildings  for  the  wine- 
presses and  storage. 

Margaritis,  seated  in  a  yellow  Utrecht  velvet  chair  by  the 
window  in  the  drawing-room,  did  not  rise  as  the  ladies  came 
in  with  Gaudissart ;  he  was  thinking  of  the  sale  of  his  butts  of 
wine.  He  was  a  lean  man,  with  a  pear-shaped  head,  bald 
above  the  forehead,  and  furnished  with  a  few  hairs  at  the 
back.  His  deep-set  eyes,  shaded  by  thick,  black  brows, 
and  with  dark  rings  round  them,  his  nose  as  thin  as  the  blade 
of  a  knife,  his  high  cheek-bones  and  hollow  cheeks,  his  gener- 
ally oblong  outline — everything,  down  to  his  absurdly  long 
flat  chin,  contributed  to  give  a  strange  look  to  his  coun- 
tenance, suggesting  that  of  a  professor  of  rhetoric — or  of  a 
ragpicker. 

"Monsieur   Margaritis,"   said   Madame  Vernier,   "come, 


GAUDISSART   THE    GREAT.  3S9 

wake  up  !  Here  is  a  gentleman  sent  to  you  by  my  husband, 
and  you  are  to  hear  him  with  attention.  Put  aside  your 
mathematical  calculations  and  talk  to  him." 

At  this  speech  the  madman  rose,  looked  at  Gaudissart,  waved 
to  him  to  be  seated,  and  said — 

"Let  us  talk,  monsieur." 

The  three  women  went  into  Madame  Margaritis'  room, 
leaving  the  door  open  so  as  to  hear  all  that  went  on,  and  in- 
tervene in  case  of  need.  Hardly  were  they  seated  when  Mon- 
sieur Vernier  came  in  quietly  from  the  vineyard,  and  made 
them  let  him  in  through  the  window  without  a  sound. 

"You  were  in  business,  monsieur?"  Gaudissart  fluently 
began. 

"  Public  business,"  replied  Margaritis,  interrupting  him, 
"  I  pacified  Calabria  when  Murat  was  King." 

"  Heyday,  he  has  been  in  Calabria  now  !  "  said  Vernier  in 
a  whisper. 

"Oh,  indeed!"  said  Gaudissart.  "Then,  monsieur,  we 
cannot  fail  to  come  to  an  understanding." 

"  I  am  listening,"  replied  Margaritis,  settling  himself  in 
the  attitude  of  a  man  sitting  for  his  portrait. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Gaudissart,  fidgeting  with  his  watch-key, 
which  he  twisted  round  and  round  without  thinking  of  what 
he  was  doing,  with  a  regular  rotatory  twirl  which  engaged  the 
madman's  attention  and,  perhaps,  helped  to  keep  him  quiet; 
"  Monsieur,  if  you  were  not  a  man  of  superior  intelligence  " — 
Margaritis  bowed — "I  should  restrict  myself  to  setting  forth 
the  material  advantages  of  this  concern  ;  but  its  psychological 
value  is  worthy  of  your  attention.  Mark  me  !  Of  all  forms 
of  social  wealth,  time  is  the  most  precious ;  to  save  time  is  to 
grow  rich,  is  it  not  ?  Now,  is  there  anything  which  takes  up 
more  time  in  our  lives  than  anxiety  as  to  what  I  may  call 
boiling  the  pot — a  homely  metaphor,  but  clearly  stating  the 
question  ?  Or  is  there  anything  which  consumes  more  time 
than  the  lack  of  a  guarantee  to  offer  as  security  to  those  of 
24 


370  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

whom  you  ask  money  when,  though  impecunious  for  a  time, 
you  yet  are  rich  in  prospects?  " 

"  Money — you  have  come  to  the  point." 

"Well,  then,  monsieur,  I  am  the  emissary  to  the  depart- 
ments of  a  company  of  bankers  and  capitalists  who  have 
perceived  what  enormous  loss  of  time,  and  consequently  of 
productive  intelligence  and  activity,  is  thus  entailed  on  men 
with  the  future  before  them.  Now,  the  idea  has  occurred  to 
us  that,  to  such  men,  we  may  capitalize  the  future,  we  may 
discount  their  talents,  by  discounting  what?  why,  their  time, 
and  securing  its  value  to  their  heirs.  This  is  not  merely  to 
economize  time ;  it  is  to  price  it,  to  value  it,  to  represent  in  a 
pecuniary  form  the  products  you  may  expect  to  obtain  in  a 
certain  unknown  time  by  representing  the  moral  qualities  with 
which  you  are  gifted,  and  which  are,  monsieur,  a  living  force, 
like  a  waterfall,  or  a  steam-engine  of  three,  ten,  twenty,  fifty 
horse-power.  This  is  progress,  a  great  movement  toward  a 
better  order  of  things,  a  movement  due  to  the  energy  of  our 
age — an  essentially  progressive  age,  as  I  can  prove  to  you  when 
we  come  to  the  conception  of  a  more  logical  coordination  of 
social  interests. 

"  I  will  explain  myself  by  tangible  instances.  I  quit  the 
purely  abstract  argument  which  we,  in  our  line,  call  the  mathe- 
matics of  ideas.  Supposing  that  instead  of  being  a  man  of 
property,  living  on  your  dividends,  you  are  a  painter,  a  musi- 
cian, a  poet " 

"I  am  a  painter,"  the  other  put  in  by  way  of  parenthesis. 

"Very  good,  so  be  it,  since  you  take  my  metaphor;  you 
are  a  painter,  you  have  a  great  future  before  you.  But  I  am 
going  further " 

At  those  words  the  lunatic  studied  Gaudissart  uneasily  to 
see  if  he  meant  to  go  away,  but  was  reassured  on  seeing  him 
remain  seated. 

"You  are  nothing  at  all,"  Gaudissart  went  on,  "but  you 
feel  yourself " 


GAUDISSAKT  THE    GREAT.  371 

"I  feel  myself,"  said  Margaritis. 

"  You  say  to  yourself,  '  I  shall  be  a  minister; '  very  good. 
You,  the  painter,  you,  the  artist,  the  man  of  letters,  the  future 
minister,  you  calculate  your  prospects,  you  value  them  at  so 
much — you  estimate  them,  let  us  say — at  a  hundred  thousand 
crowns ' ' 

"And  you  have  brought  me  a  hundred  thousand  crowns?" 
said  the  lunatic. 

"Yes,  monsieur,  you  will  see.  Either  your  heirs  will  get 
them  without  fail,  in  the  event  of  your  death,  since  the  com- 
pany pledges  itself  to  pay,  or,  if  you  live,  you  get  them  by 
your  works  of  art  or  your  fortunate  speculations.  Nay,  if 
you  have  made  a  mistake,  you  can  begin  all  over  again.  But, 
when  once  you  have  fixed  the  value,  as  I  have  had  the  honor 
of  explaining  to  you,  of  your  intellectual  capital — for  it  is 
intellectual  capital,  bear  that  clearly  in  mind,  monsieur." 

"I  understand,"  said  the  madman. 

"You  sign  a  policy  of  insurance  with  this  company,  which 
credits  you  with  the  value  of  a  hundred  thousand  francs — you, 
the  painter " 

"I  am  a  painter,"  said  Margaritis. 

"  You  the  musician,  the  minister — and  promises  to  pay  that 
sum  to  your  family,  your  heirs,  if,  in  consequence  of  your 
demise,  the  hopes  of  the  income  to  be  derived  from  your  in- 
tellectual capital  should  be  lost.  The  payment  of  the  premium 
is  thus  all  that  is  needed  to  consolidate  your " 

"Your  cash-box,"  said  the  madman,  interrupting  him. 

"Well,  of  course,  monsieur;  I  see  that  you  understand 
business." 

"Yes,"  said  Margaritis,  "I  was  the  founder  of  the  Banque 
Territoriale,  Rue  des  Fosses-Montmartre  in  Paris,  in  1798." 

"  For,"  Gaudissart  went  on,  "in  order  to  repay  the  intel- 
lectual capital  with  which  each  of  us  credits  himself,  must  not 
all  who  insure  pay  a  certain  premium — three  per  cent.,  an- 
nually three  per  cent.  ?     And  thus,  by  paying  a  very  small 


372  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

sum,  a  mere  nothing,  you  are  protecting  your  family  against 
the  disastrous  effects  of  your  death." 

"But  I  am  alive,"  objected  the  lunatic. 

"Ah  yes,  and  if  you  live  to  be  old — that  is  the  objection 
commonly  raised,  the  objection  of  the  vulgar,  and  you  must 
see  that  if  we  had  not  anticipated  and  annihilated  it,  we 
should  be  unworthy  to  become — what  ?  What  are  we,  in 
fact  ?     The  book-keepers  of  the  great  Bank  of  Intellect. 

"Monsieur,  I  do  not  say  this  to  you;  but  wherever  I  go, 
I  meet  with  men  who  pretend  to  teach  something  new,  to 
bring  forward  some  fresh  argument  against  those  who  have 
grown  pale  with  studying  the  business — on  my  word  of  honor, 
it  is  contemptible  !  However,  the  world  is  made  so,  and  I 
have  no  hope  of  reforming  it.  Your  objection,  monsieur,  is 
absurd " 

"Quesaco?  (What?)"  said  Margaritis. 

"For  this  reason.  If  you  should  live,  and  if  you  have 
the  money  credited  to  you  in  your  policy  of  insurance  against 
the  chances  of  death — you  follow  me " 

"I  follow." 

"Well,  then,  it  is  because  you  have  succeeded  in  your 
undertakings  !  And  you  will  have  succeeded  solely  in 
consequence  of  that  policy  of  insurance ;  for,  by  ridding 
yourself  of  all  the  anxieties  which  are  involved  in  having  a 
wife  at  your  heels,  and  children  whom  your  death  may  re- 
duce to  beggary,  you  simply  double  your  chances  of  success. 
If  you  are  at  the  top  of  the  tree,  you  have  grasped  the  intel- 
lectual capital  compared  with  which  the  insurance  money  is  a 
trifle,  a  mere  trifle." 

"An  admirable  idea  !  " 

"Is  it  not,  monsieur?  I  call  this  beneficent  institution 
the  Mutual  Insurance  against  beggary  ! — or,  if  you  prefer  it, 
the  Office  for  discounting  Talent.  For  talent,  sir,  talent  is  a 
bill  of  exchange,  bestowed  by  nature  on  a  man  of  genius, 
and  which  is  often  at  long  date — ha,  hah  !  " 


GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT.  373 

"Very  handsome  usury,"  cried  Margaritis. 

"The  deuce  !  He  is  sharp  enough,  this  old  boy  !  I  have 
made  a  mistake ;  I  must  attack  this  man  on  higher  grounds 
with  palaver  Ai,"  thought  Gaudissart.  "Not  at  all,"  mon- 
sieur," said  he  aloud.     "  To  you  who " 

"  Will  you  take  a  glass  of  wine?  "  asked  Margaritis. 

"With  pleasure,"  said  Gaudissart. 

"  Wife  !  give  us  a  bottle  of  the  wine  of  which  two  casks 
are  left.  You  are  here  in  the  headquarters  of  Vouvray," 
said  the  master,  pointing  to  his  vines.  "  The  clos  (vineyard) 
Margaritis." 

The  maid  brought  in  glasses  and  a  bottle  of  the  wine  of 
1819.  The  worthy  lunatic  filled  a  glass  with  scrupulous 
care  and  solemnly  presented  it  to  Gaudissart,  who  drank  it. 

"But  you  are  playing  me  some  trick,  monsieur,"  said 
the  commercial  traveler.  "This  is  Madeira,  genuine  Ma- 
deira! " 

"I  should  think  it  is!"  replied  the  lunatic.  "The  only 
fault  of  the  Vouvray  wine,  monsieur,  is  that  it  cannot  be  used 
as  an  ordinaire,  as  a  table  wine.  It  is  too  generous,  too 
strong  ;  and  it  is  sold  in  Paris  as  Madeira  after  being  doc- 
tored with  brandy.  Our  wine  is  so  rich  that  many  of  the 
Paris  merchants,  when  the  French  crop  is  sufficient  for  Hol- 
land and  Belgium,  buy  our  wine  to  mix  with  the  wine  grown 
about  Paris,  and  so  manufacture  a  Bordeaux  wine.  But  what 
you  are  drinking  at  this  moment,  my  dear  and  very  amiable 
sir,  is  fit  for  a  king ;  it  is  the  head  of  Vouvray.  I  have  two 
casks,  only  two  casks  of  it.  Persons  who  appreciate  the  finest 
wines,  high-class  wines,  and  like  to  put  a  wine  on  their  table 
which  has  a  character  not  to  be  met  with  in  the  regular  trade, 
apply  direct  to  us.  Now,  monsieur,  do  you  happen  to  know 
any  one " 

"  Let  us  get  back  to  our  business,"  said  Gaudissart. 

"We  are  there,  monsieur,"  replied  the  madman.  "My 
wine  is  heady,  and  you  are  talking  of  capital ;  the  etymology 


374  GAUDISSART  THE   GREAT. 

of  capital  is  caput — head.     Heh  ?    The  head  of  Vouvray— 
the  connection  is  obvious." 

"As  I  was  saying,"  persisted  Gaudissart,  "either  you  have 
realized  your  intellectual  capital " 

"  I  have  realized,  monsieur.  Will  you  take  my  two  punch 
eons?     I  will  give  you  favorable  terms." 

"No,"  said  Gaudissart  the  Great,  "I  allude  to  the  insur- 
ance of  intellectual  capital  and  policies  on  life.  I  will  resume 
the  thread  of  my  argument." 

The  madman  grew  calmer,  sat  down,  and  looked  at  Gau- 
dissart. 

"  I  was  saying,  monsieur,  that  if  you  should  die,  the  capital 
is  paid  over  to  your  family  without  difficulty." 

"Without  difficulty." 

"Yes,  excepting  in  the  case  of  suicide " 

"  A  question  for  the  law." 

"  No,  sir.  As  you  know,  suicide  is  an  act  that  is  always 
easily  proved." 

"In  France,"  said  Margaritis.     "But " 

"  But  abroad,"  said  Gaudissart.  "  Well,  monsieur,  to  con- 
clude that  part  of  the  question,  I  may  say  at  once  that  death 
abroad  or  on  the  field  of  battle  is  not  included " 

"What  do  you  insure,  then?  Nothing  whatever,"  cried 
the  other.     "  Now,  my  bank  was  based  on " 

"Nothing  whatever,  sir?"  cried  Gaudissart,  interrupting 
him.  "  Nothing  whatever?  How  about  illness,  grief,  poverty, 
and  the  passions?    But  we  need  not  discuss  exceptional  cases." 

"  No,  we  will  not  discuss  them,"  said  the  madman. 

"  What,  then,  is  the  upshot  of  this  transaction  ?  "  exclaimed 
Gaudissart.  "To  you,  as  a  banker,  I  will  simply  state  the 
figures.  You  have  a  man,  a  man  with  a  future,  well  dressed, 
living  on  his  art — he  wants  money,  he  asks  for  it — a  blank. 
Civilization  at  large  will  refuse  to  advance  money  to  this 
man,  who,  in  thought,  dominates  over  civilization,  who  will 
some  day  dominate  over  it  by  his  brush,  his  chisel,  by  wordsj 


GAUDISSAET  THE    GREAT.  375 

or  ideas,  or  a  system.  Civilization  is  merciless.  She  has  no 
bread  for  the  great  men  who  provide  her  with  luxuries ;  she 
feeds  them  on  abuse  and  mockery,  the  gilded  slut !  The  ex- 
pression is  a  strong  one,  but  I  will  not  retract  it.  Well,  your 
misprized  great  man  comes  to  us;  we  recognize  his  greatness, 
we  bow  to  him  respectfully,  we  listen  to  him,  and  he  says 
to  us — 

"  '  Gentlemen  of  the  insurance  company,  my  life  is  worth 
so  much;  I  will  pay  you  so  much  per  cent,  on  my  works.' 
Well,  what  do  we  do  ?  At  once,  without  grudging,  we  admit 
him  to  the  splendid  banquet  of  civilization  as  an  important 
guest " 

"  Then  you  must  have  wine,"  said  the  madman. 

"  As  an  important  guest.  He  signs  his  policy,  he  takes  our 
contemptible  paper  rags — mere  miserable  rags,  which,  rags  as 
they  are,  have  more  power  than  his  genius  had.  For,  in  fact, 
if  he  wants  money,  everybody  on  seeing  that  sheet  of  paper  is 
ready  to  lend  to  him.  On  the  Bourse,  at  the  bankers',  anv- 
where,  even  at  the  money-lenders',  he  can  get  money — because 
he  can  offer  security.  Well,  sir,  was  not  this  a  gulf  that 
needed  filling  in  the  social  system? 

"But,  sir,  this  is  but  a  part  of  the  business  undertaken  by 
the  life  insurance  company.  We  also  insure  debtors  on  a 
different  scale  of  premiums.  We  offer  annuities  on  terms 
graduated  by  age,  on  an  infinitely  more  favorable  calculation 
than  has  yet  been  allowed  in  tontines  based  on  tables  of 
mortality  now  known  to  be  inaccurate.  Our  society,  opera- 
ting on  the  mass,  our  annuitants  need  have  no  fear  of  the 
reflections  that  sadden  their  latter  years,  in  themselves  sad 
enough  ;  such  thoughts  as  must  necessarily  invade  them  when 
their  money  is  in  private  hands.  So,  you  see,  monsieur,  we 
have  taken  the  measure  of  life  under  every  aspect " 

"Sucked  it  at  every  pore,"  said  Margaritis.  "But  take  a 
glass  of  wine;  you  have  certainly  earned  it.  You  must  lay 
some  velvet  on  your  stomach  if  you  want  to  keep  your  jaw  in 

iN 


376  GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT. 

working  order.    And  the  wine  of  Vouvray,  monsieur,  is,  when 
old  enough,  pure  velvet." 

"And  what  do  you  think  of  it  all?"  said  Gaudissart, 
emptying  his  glass. 

"It  is  all  very  fine,  very  new,  very  advantageous;  but  I 
think  better  of  the  system  of  loans  on  land  that  was  in  use  in 
my  bank  in  the  Rue  des  Fosses-Montmartre." 

"There  you  are  right,  monsieur,"  said  Gaudissart,  "that 
has  been  worked  and  worked  out,  done  and  done  again.  We 
now  have  the  Mortgage  Society  which  lends  on  real  estate, 
and  works  that  system  on  a  large  scale.  But  is  not  that  a  mere 
trifle  in  comparison  with  our  idea  of  consolidating  possibil- 
ities. Consolidating  hopes,  coagulating — financially — each 
man's  desires  for  wealth,  and  securing  their  realization.  It 
remained  for  our  age,  sir,  an  age  of  transition — of  transition 
and  progress  combined  !  " 

"Ay,  of  progress,"  said  the  lunatic.  "I  like  progress, 
especially  such,  as  brings  good  times  for  the  wine-trade 

"The  'Times — le  Temps' !"    exclaimed  Gaudissart, 

not  heeding  the  madman's  meaning.      "A  poor  paper,  sir; 
if  you  take  it  in,  I  pity  you." 

"The  newspaper?"  cried  Margaritis.  "To  be  sure,  I  am 
devoted  to  the  newspaper.  Wife,  wife!  where  is  the  news- 
paper?" he  went  on,  turning  toward  the  door. 

"Very  good,  monsieur;  if  you  take  an  interest  in  the 
papers,  we  shall  certainly  agree." 

"  Yes,  yes  ;  but  before  you  hear  the  paper,  confess  that  this 

wine  is " 

•   "Delicious,"  said  Gaudissart. 

"Come  on,  then,  we  will  finish  the  bottle  between  us." 
The  madman  a  quarter  filled  his  own  glass  and  poured  out  a 
bumper  for  Gaudissart. 

"  As  I  say,  sir,  I  have  two  casks  of  that  very  wine.  If  you 
think  it  good,  and  are  disposed  to  deal " 

"The  fathers  of  the  Saint-Simonian  doctrine  have,  in  fact, 


GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT.  377 

commissioned  me  to  forward  them  such  products  as But 

let  me  tell  you  of  their  splendid  newspaper.  You,  who  under- 
stand the  insurance  business,  and  are  ready  to  help  me  to  ex- 
tend it  in  this  district " 

"Certainly,"  said  Margaritis,  "if " 

"  Of  course,  if  I  take  your  wine.  And  your  wine  is  very 
good,  monsieur;  it  goes  to  the  spot." 

"  Champagne  is  made  of  it.  There  is  a  gentleman  here, 
from  Paris,  who  has  come  to  make  champagne  at  Tours." 

"I  quite  believe  it.  The  'Globe,'  which  you  must  have 
heard  mentioned " 

"  I  know  it  well,"  said  Margaritis. 

"  I  was  sure  of  it,"  said  Gaudissart.  "  Monsieur,  you  have 
a  powerful  head — >a  bump  which  is  known  as  the  equine 
head.  There  is  something  of  the  horse  in  the  head  of  every 
great  man.  Now  a  man  can  be  a  genius  and  live  unknown. 
It  is  a  trick  that  has  happened  often  enough  to  men  who,  in 
spite  of  their  talents,  live  in  obscurity,  and  which  nearly 
befell  the  great  Saint-Simon  and  Monsieur  Vico,  a  man  of 
mark  who  is  making  his  way.  He  is  coming  on  well  is  Vico, 
and  I  am  glad.  Here  we  enter  on  the  new  theory  and  for- 
mula of  the  human  race.     Attention,  monsieur " 

"Attention  !  "  echoed  Margaritis. 

"  The  oppression  of  man  by  man  ought  to  have  ended, 
monsieur,  on  the  day  when  Christ — I  do  not  say  Jesus  Christ, 
I  say  Christ — came  to  proclaim  the  equality  of  men  before 
God.  But  has  not  this  equality  been  hitherto  the  most  illu- 
sory chimera?  Now,  Saint-Simon  supplements  Christ.  Christ 
has  served  His  time " 

"Then,  is  He  released?"  asked  Margaritis. 

"  He  has  served  His  time  from  the  point  of  view  of  Liber- 
alism. There  is  something  stronger  to  guide  us  now — the  new 
creed,  free  and  individual  creativeness,  social  coordination  bv 
which  each  one  shall  receive  his  social  reward  equitably,  in 
accordance  with  his  work,  and   no  longer  be  the  hireling  of 


378  GAUDISSART  THE.    GREAT. 

individuals  who,  incapable  themselves,  make  all  labor  for 
the  benefit  of  one  alone.     Hence  the  doctrine " 

"And  what  becomes  of  the  servants?"  asked  Margaritis. 

"  They  remain  servants,  monsieur,  if  they  are  only  capable 
of  being  servants." 

"  Then  of  what  use  is  the  doctrine  ?  " 

"  Oh,  to  judge  of  that,  monsieur,  you  must  take  your  stand 
on  the  highest  point  of  view  whence  you  can  clearly  command 
a  general  prospect  of  humanity.  This  brings  us  to  Ballanche  ! 
Do  you  know  Monsieur  Ballanche?" 

"  It  is  my  principal  business,"  said  the  madman,  who  mis- 
understood the  name  for  la  planche  (boards  or  staves). 

"Very  good,"  said  Gaudissart.  "  Then,  sir,  if  the  palin- 
genesis and  successive  developments  of  the  spiritualized 
'Globe'  touch  you,  delight  you,  appeal  to  you — then,  my 
dear  sir,  the  newspaper  called  the  'Globe,'  a  fine  name,  ac- 
curately expressing  its  mission — the  '  Globe '  is  the  cicerone 
who  will  explain  to  you  every  morning  the  fresh  conditions 
under  which,  in  quite  a  short  time,  the  world  will  undergo  a 
political  and  moral  change." 

"What  is  that?  "  asked  Margaritis. 

"  I  will  explain  the  argument  by  a  simile,"  said  Gaudissart. 
"If,  as  children,  our  nurses  took  us  to  Seraphin,  do  not  we 
older  men  need  a  presentment  of  the  future  ?  These  gentle- 
men  " 

"  Do  they  drink  wine  ?  " 

"Yes,  monsieur.  Their  house  is  established,  I  may  say, 
on  an  admirable  footing — a  prophetic  footing ;  handsome  re- 
ceptions, all  the  bigwigs,  splendid  parties." 

"  To  be  sure,"  said  the  madman,  "the  laborers  who  pull 
down  must  be  fed  as  "well  as  those  who  build." 

"All  the  more  so,  monsieur,  when  they  pull  down  with  one 
hand  and  build  up  with  the  other,  as  the  apostles  of  the 
'Globe'  do." 

"  Then  they  must  have  wine,  the  wine  of  Vouvray ;  the  two 


GAUD1SSART  THE    GREAT.  379 

casks  I  have  left — three  hundred  bottles  for  a  hundred  francs 
— a  mere  song." 

"  How. much  a  bottle  does  that  come  to?  "  said  Gaudissart. 
"  Let  me  see  ;  there  is  the  carriage,  and  the  town  dues — not 
seven  sous — a  very  good  bargain."  ("I  have  caught  my 
man,"  thought  Gaudissart.  "  You  want  to  sell  me  the  wine, 
which  I  want,  and  I  can  get  the  whip  hand  of  you.")  "They 
pay  more  for  other  wine,"  he  went  on.  "  Well,  monsieur, 
men  who  haggle  are  sure  to  agree.  Speak  honestly ;  you  have 
considerable  influence  in  the  district  ?  " 

"  I  believe  so,"  said  the  madman.  "  The  head  of  Vouvray, 
you  see." 

"Well,  and  you  perfectly  understand  the  working  of  the 
intellectual  capital  insurance?" 

"Perfectly." 

"You  have  realized  the  vast  proportions  of  the  'Globe?  '  " 

"Twice — on  foot." 

Gaudissart  did  not  heed  him ;  he  was  entangled  in  the 
maze  of  his  own  thoughts,  and  listening  to  his  own  words, 
assured  of  success. 

"Well,  seeing  the  position  you  hold,  I  can  understand  that 
at  your  age  you  have  nothing  to  insure.  But,  monsieur,  you 
can  persuade  those  persons  in  this  district  to  insure  who, 
either  by  their  personal  merits  or  by  the  precarious  position 
of  their  families,  may  be  anxious  to  provide  for  the  future. 
And  so,  if  you  will  subscribe  to  the  '  Globe,'  and  if  you  will 
give  me  the  support  of  your  authority  in  this  district  to  invite 
the  investment  of  capital  in  annuities — for  annuities  are  pop- 
ular in  the  provinces — well,  we  may  come  to  an  agreement  as 
to  the  purchase  of  the  two  casks  of  wine.  Will  you  take  in 
the 'Globe?'" 

"I  live  on  the  Globe." 

"  Will  you  support  me  with  the  influential  residents  in  the 
district?" 

"  I  support " 


380  GAUD1SSART   THE    GREAT, 

"And " 


"And?- 


"  And  I But  you  will  pay  your  subscription  to  the 

*  Globe?'" 

"  The  f.  Globe  ' — a  good  paper — an  annuity?  " 

"An  annuity,  monsieur?  Well,  yes,  you  are  right;  for  it 
is  full  of  life,  of  vitality,  and  learning;  choke  full  of  learning; 
a  handsome  paper,  well  printed,  a  good  color,  thick  paper. 
Oh,  it  is  none  of  your  flimsy  shoddy,  mere  waste-paper  that 
tears  if  you  look  at  it.  And  it  goes  deep,  gives  you  reasoning 
that  you  may  think  over  at  leisure,  and  pleasant  occupation 
here  in  the  depths  of  the  country." 

"That  is  the  thing  for  me,"  said  the  madman. 

"  It  costs  a  mere  trifle — eighty  francs  a  year." 

"That  is  not  the  thing  for  me,"  said  Margaritis. 

"Monsieur,"  said  Gaudissart,  "  of  course  you  have  little 
children?" 

"  Some,"  said  Margaritis,  who  misunderstood  have  for  love. 

"Well,  then,  the  'Journal  des  Enfants,'  seven  francs  a 
year " 

"  Buy  my  two  casks  of  wine,"  said  Margaritis,  "  and  I  will 
subscribe  to  your  children's  paper ;  that  is  the  thing  for  me  ; 
a  fine  idea.  Intellectual  tyranny — a  child — heh  ?  Does  not 
man  tyrannize  over  man  ?  " 

"  Right  you  are,"  said  Gaudissart. 

"Right  lam." 

"  And  you  consent  to  steer  me  round  the  district  ?  " 

"Round  the  district." 

"  I  have  your  approbation  ?  " 

"You  have." 

"Well,  then,  sir,  I  will  take  your  two  casks  of  wine  at  a 
hundred  francs " 

"  No,  no,  a  hundred  and  ten." 

"  Monsieur,  a  hundred  and  ten,  I  will  say  a  hundred  and 
ten,  but  it  is  a  hundred  and  ten  to  the  gentlemen  of  the  paper 


GAUDISSART   THE    GREAT.  381 

and  one  hundred  to  me.  If  I  find  you  a  buyer,  you  owe  me 
ti  commission." 

"A  hundred  and  twenty  to  them.  No  commission  to  the 
commissioners." 

"  Very  neat.      And  not  only  witty,  but  spirited." 

"  No,  spirituous." 

"  Better  and  better — like  Nicolet." 

"That  is  my  way,"  said  the  lunatic.  "  Come  and  look  at 
my  vineyards  ?  " 

"With  pleasure,"  said  Gaudissart.  "That  wine  goes 
strangely  to  the  head." 

And  Gaudissart  the  Great  went  out  with  Monsieur  Mar- 
garitis,  who  led  him  from  terrace  to  terrace,  from  vine  to  vine. 

The  three  ladies  and  Monsieur  Vernier  could  laugh  now  at 
their  ease,  as  they  saw  the  two  men  from  the  window  gesticu- 
lating, haranguing,  standing  still,  and  going  on  again,  talking 
vehemently. 

"  Why  did  your  good  man  take  him  out  of  hearing  ?  "  said 
Vernier. 

At  last  Margaritis  came  in  again  with  the  commercial  trav- 
eler ;  they  were  both  walking  at  a  great  pace  as  if  in  a  hurry 
to  conclude  the  business. 

"And  the  countryman,  I  bet,  has  been  too  many  for  the 
Parisian,"  said  Vernier. 

In  point  of  fact,  Gaudissart  the  Great,  sitting  at  one  end 
of  the  card  table,  to  the  great  delight  of  Margaritis,  wrote  an 
order  for  the  delivery  of  two  casks  of  wine.  Then,  after 
reading  through  the  contract,  Margaritis  paid  him  down  seven 
francs  as  a  subscription  to  the  children's  paper. 

"Till  to-morrow,  then,  monsieur,"  said  Gaudissart  the 
Great,  twisting  his  watch-key;  "I  shall  have  the  honor  of 
calling  for  you  to-morrow.  You  can  send  the  wine  to  Paris 
direct  to  the  address  I  have  given  you,  and  forward  it  as  soon 
as  you  receive  the  money." 

Gaudissart  was  from  Normandy;   there  were  two  sides  to 


382  GAUDISSART    THE    GREAT. 

every  bargain  he  made,  and  he  required  an  agreement  from 
Monsieur  Margaritis,  who  with  a  madman's  glee  in  gratifying 
his  favorite  whim,  signed,  after  'reading,  a  contract  to  deliver 
two  casks  of  wine  of  "  Clos  Margaritis." 

So  Gaudissart  went  off  in  high  spirits,  humming  Le  roi  des 
mers,  prends  plus  bas,  to  the  Golden  Sun  inn,  where  he  natu- 
rally had  a  chat  with  the  host  while  waiting  for  dinner. 
Mitouflet  was  an  old  soldier,  simple  but  cunning,  as  peasants 
are,  but  never  laughing  at  a  joke,  as  being  a  man  who  is  ac- 
customed to  the  roar  of  cannon,  and  to  passing  a  jest  in  the 
ranks. 

"You  have  some  very  tough  customers  hereabouts,"  said 
Gaudissart,  leaning  against  the  door-post  and  lighting  his 
cigar  at  Mitouflet's  pipe. 

"  How  is  that?  "  asked  Mitouflet. 

"  Well,  men  who  ride  roughshod  over  political  and  finan- 
cial theories." 

"  Whom  have  you  been  talking  to,  if  I  may  make  so  bold?" 
asked  the  innkeeper  guilelessly,  while  he  skillfully  expectorated 
after  the  manner  of  smokers. 

"To  a  wideawake  chap  named  Margaritis." 

Mitouflet  glanced  at  his  customer,  twice,  with  calm  irony. 

"  Oh  yes,  he  is  wideawake,  no  doubt  !  He  knows  too  much 
for  most  people  :   they  don't  follow  him " 

"I  can  quite  believe  it.  He  has  a  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  higher  branches  of  finance." 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  said  Mitouflet ;  "and,  for  my  part,  I  have 
always  thought  it  a  pity  that  he  should  be  mad." 

"Mad?     How?" 

"How?  Why,  mad,  as  a  madman  is  mad,"  repeated  the 
tavern-keeper.  "  But  he  is  not  dangerous,  and  his  wife  looks 
carefully  after  him.  So  you  understood  each  other?  That's 
funny,"  said  the  relentless  Mitouflet,  with  the  utmost  calm. 

"Funny?"  cried  Gaudissart.  "Funny?  But  your  pre- 
cious Monsieur  Vernier  was  making  a  fool  of  me  !  " 


GAUDISSART  THE    GREAT.  383 

"  Did  he  send  you  there  ?  "  said  Mitouflet. 

"Yes." 

"  I  say,  wife,"  cried  the  innkeeper,  "  listen  to  that  !  Mon- 
sieur Vernier  actually  sent  monsieur  here  to  talk  to  old  Mar- 
garitis " 

"And  what  did  you  find  to  say  to  each  other,  my  good 
gentleman,"  said  the  woman,   "since  he  is  quite  mad?" 

"  He  sold  me  two  casks  of  wine." 

"And  you  bought  them  ?  " 

"Yes.*' 

"  But  it  is  his  mania  to  want  to  sell  wine  ;  he  has  none." 

"  Very  good  !  "  cried  the  drummer.  "  In  the  first  place,  I 
will  go  and  thank  Monsieur  Vernier." 

Gaudissart,  boiling  with  rage,  went  off  to  the  house  of  the 
ex-dyer,  whom  he  found  in  his  parlor  laughing  with  the 
neighbors,  to  whom  he  was  already  telling  the  story. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  this  Prince  of  Drummers,  his  eyes  glar- 
ing with  wrath,  "  you  are  a  sneak  and  a  blackguard  ;  and  if 
you  are  not  the  lowest  of  turnkeys — a  class  I  rank  below  the 
convicts — you  will  give  me  satisfaction  for  the  insult  you  have 
done  me  by  placing  me  in  the  power  of  a  man  whom  you  knew 
to  be  mad.      Do  you  hear  me,  Monsieur  Vernier,  the  dyer?" 

This  was  the  speech  Gaudissart  had  prepared,  as  a  tragedian 
prepares  his  entrance  on  the  stage. 

"  What  next?  "  retorted  Vernier,  encouraged  by  the  pres- 
ence of  his  neighbors.  "  Do  you  think  we  have  not  good 
right  to  make  game  of  a  gentleman  who  arrives  at  Vouvray 
with  an  air  and  a  flourish,  to  get  our  money  out  of  us  under 
pretense  of  being  great  men — painters  or  verse-mongers — 
and  who  thus  gratuitously  places  us  on  a  level  with  a  penniless 
horde,  out  at  elbows,  homeless  and  roofless  ?  What  have  we 
done  to  deserve  it,  we  who  are  fathers  of  families  ?  A  rogue, 
who  asks  us  to  subscribe  to  the  'Globe,'  a  paper  which 
preaches  as   the   first  law  of  God,  if  you  please,  that  a  man 


384  GAUD ISS ART   THE    GREAT. 

shall  not  inherit  what  his  father  and  mother  can  leave  him  ? 
On  my  sacred  word  of  honor,  old  Margaritis  can  talk  more 
sense  than  that. 

"And,  after  all,  what  have  you  to  complain  of?  You  were 
quite  of  a  mind,  you  and  he.  These  gentlemen  can  bear  wit- 
ness that  if  you  had  speechified  to  all  the  people  in  the  country- 
side you  would  not  have  been  so  well  understood." 

"  That  is  all  very  well  to  say,  but  I  consider  myself  insulted, 
monsieur,  and  I  expect  satisfaction." 

"Very  good,  sir;  I  consider  you  insulted  if  that  will  be 
any  comfort  to  you,  and  I  will  not  give  you  satisfaction,  for 
there  is  not  satisfaction  enough  in  the  whole  silly  business  for 
me  to  give  you  any.      Is  he  absurd,  I  ask  you  ?  " 

At  these  words  Gaudissart  rushed  on  the  dyer  to  give  him  a 
blow ;  but  the  Vouvrillons  were  on  the  alert  and  threw  them- 
selves between  them,  so  that  Gaudissart  the  Great  onlv  hit 
the  dyer's  wig,  which  flew  off  and  alighted  on  the  head  of 
Mademoiselle  Claire  Vernier. 

"  If  you  are  not  satisfied  now,  monsieur,  I  shall  be  at  the 
inn  till  to-morrow  morning;  you  will  find  me  there,  and  ready 
to  show  you  what  is  meant  by  satisfaction  for  an  insult.  I 
fought  in  July,  monsieur  !  " 

"Very  well,"  said  the  dyer,  "  you  shall  fight  at  Vouvray ; 
and  you  will  stay  here  rather  longer  than  you  bargained  for." 

Gaudissart  departed,  pondering  on  this  reply,  which  seemed 
to  him  ominous  of  mischief.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he 
dined  cheerlessly. 

The  whole  borough  of  Vouvray  was  in  a  stir  over  the  meet- 
ing between  Gaudissart  and  Monsieur  Vernier.  A  duel  was  a 
thing  unheard  of  in  this  benign  region. 

"  Monsieur  Mitouflet,  I  am  going  to  fight  Monsieur  Vernier 
to-morrow  morning,"  said  Gaudissart  to  his  host.  "I  know 
nobody  here  ;   will  you  be  my  second  ?  " 

"With  pleasure,"  said  Mitouflet. 

Gaudissart  had  hardly  finished  his  dinner  when   Madame 


GAUDISSART   THE    GREAT.  385 

Fontanieu  and  the  mayor's  deputy  came  to  the  Golden  Sun, 
took  Mitouflet  aside,  and  represented  to  him  what  a  sad  thing 
it  would  be  for  the  whole  district  if  a  violent  death  should 
occur ;  they  described  the  frightful  state  of  affairs  for  good 
Madame  Vernier,  and  implored  him  to  patch  the  matter  up  so 
as  to  save  the  honor  of  the  community. 

"  I  will  see  to  it,"  said  the  innkeeper  with  a  wink. 

In  the  evening  Mitouflet  went  up  to  Gaudissart's  room, 
carrying  pens,  ink,  and  paper. 

"What  is  all  that?"  inquired  Gaudissart  of  the  tavern- 
keeper. 

"  Well,  as  you  are  to  fight  to-morrow,  I  thought  you  might 
be  glad  to  leave  some  little  instructions  and  that  you  might 
wish  to  write  some  letters,  for  we  all  have  some  one  who  is 
dear  to  us.  Oh  !  that  will  not  kill  you.  Are  you  a  good 
fencer?  Would  you  like  to  practice  a  little  ?  I  have  some 
foils." 

"  I  should  be  glad  to  do  so." 

Mitouflet  fetched  the  foils  and  two  masks. 

"  Now,  let  us  see." 

The  innkeeper  and  the  drummer  stood  on  guard.  Mitouflet, 
who  had  been  an  instructor  of  grenadiers,  hit  Gaudissart  sixty- 
eight  times,  driving  him  back  to  the  wall. 

"The  devil  !  you  are  good  at  the  game  !  "  said  Gaudissart, 
out  of  breath. 

"I  am  no  match  for  Monsieur  Vernier." 

"  The  deuce  !     Then  I  will  fight  with  pistols." 

"  I  advise  you  to.  You  see,  if  you  use  large  horse-pistols 
and  load  them  to  the  muzzle,  they  are  sure  to  kick  and  miss, 
and  each  man  withdraws  with  unblemished  honor.  Leave  me 
to  arrange  it.  By  the  mass,  two  good  men  would  be  great 
fools  to  kill  each  other  for  a  jest." 

"Are  you  sure  the  pistols  will  fire  wide  enough?  I  should 
be  sorry  to  kill  the  man,"  said  Gaudissart. 

"  Sleep  easy." 
25 


386  GAUDISSART   THE    GREAT. 

Next  morning  the  adversaries,  both  rather  pale,  met  at  the 
foot  of  the  Pont  de  la  Cise. 

The  worthy  Vernier  narrowly  missed  killing  a  cow  that  was 
grazing  by  the  roadside  ten  yards  ofF. 

"Ah!  you  fired  in  the  air!"  exclaimed  Gaudissart,  and 
with  these  words  the  enemies  fell  into  each  other's  arms. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  traveler,  "your  joke  was  a  little 
rough,  but  it  was  funny.  I  am  sorry  I  spoke  so  strongly,  but 
I  was  beside  myself.     I  hold  you  a  man  of  honor." 

"  Monsieur,  we  will  get  you  twenty  subscribers  to  the  chil- 
dren's paper,"  replied  the  dyer,  still  rather  pale. 

"That  being  the  case,"  said  Gaudissart,  "  why  should  we 
not  breakfast  together?  Men  who  have  fought  are  always 
ready  to  understand  each  other." 

"Monsieur  Mitouflet,"  said  Gaudissart,  as  they  went  in, 
"  there  is  a  bailiff  here,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"What  for?" 

"I  mean  to  serve  a  notice  on  my  dear  little  Monsieur 
Margaritis,  requiring  him  to  supply  me  with  two  casks  of  his 
wine." 

"  But  he  has  none,"  said  Vernier. 

"  Well,  monsieur,  I  will  say  no  more  about  it  for  an  indem- 
nity of  twenty  francs.  But  I  will  not  have  it  said  in  your 
town  that  you  stole  a  march  on  Gaudissart  the  Great." 

Madame  Margaritis,  afraid  of  an  action,  which  the  plaintiff 
would  certainly  gain,  brought  the  twenty  francs  to  the  clement 
drummer,  who  was  also  spared  the  pains  of  any  further  propa- 
ganda in  one  of  the  most  jovial  districts  of  France,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  least  open  to  new  ideas. 

On  his  return  from  his  tour  in  the  southern  provinces, 
Gaudissart  the  Great  was  traveling  in  the  coupe  of  the  Laffite- 
Caillard  diligence,  and  had  for  a  fellow-passenger  a  young 
man  to  whom,  having  passed  Angoul&me,  he  condescended 
to  expatiate  on  the  mysteries  of  life,  fancying  him,  no  doubt, 
but  a  baby. 


GAUDISSART  THE   GREAT.  387 

On  reaching  Vouvray,  the  youth  exclaimed — 

"  What  a  lovely  situation  !  " 

"Yes,  monsieur,"  said  Gaudissart,  "but  the  land  is  unin- 
habitable by  reason  of  the  inhabitants.  You  would  have  a 
duel  on  your  hands  every  day.  Why,  only  three  months  ago 
I  fought  on  that  very  spot  " — and  he  pointed  to  the  bridge — 
"  with  a  confounded  dyer — pistols;  but — I  fleeced  him  !  " 

Paris,  November,  1832. 

\Note. — The  book  "  Parisians  in  the  Country  "  consists  of  "  Gaudissart 
the  Great"  and  the  "Muse  of  the  Department."  As  they  are  not  re- 
lated to  each  other  they  are,  for  mechanical  reasons,  placed  in  separate 
volumes. — Pub.] 


BEATRIX 


|F   pi 


PREFACE. 

" Beatrix"  was  built  up  in  the  odd  fashion  in  which 
Balzac  sometimes  did  build  up  his  novels,  and  which  may  be 
thought  to  account  for  an  occasional  lack  of  unity  and  grasp 
in  them.  The  original  book,  written  in  1838,  and  published 
with  the  rather  flowery  dedication  "to  Sarah"  at  the  end  of 
that  year,  stopped  at  the  marriage  of  Calyste  and  Sabine. 
The  last  part,  separately  entitled  "  Un  Adultere  Retrospectif," 
was  not  added  till  six  years  later.  It  cannot  be  said  to  be 
either  very  shocking  or  very  unnatural  that  the  young  husband 
should  exemplify  the  truth  of  that  uncomfortable  proverb,  Quia 
bu  boira;  and  it  is  perhaps  rather  more  surprising  that  Balzac 
should  have  allowed  him  to  be  "  refished  "  (as  the  French  say) 
in  a  finally  satisfactory  condition  by  his  lawful  spouse. 

Still,  I  do  not  think  the  addition  can  be  considered  on  the 
whole  an  improvement  to  the  book,  of  which  it  is  at  the  best 
rather  an  appendix  than  an  integral  part.  The  conception  of 
Beatrix  herself  seems  to  have  changed  somewhat,  and  that  not 
as  the  conception  of  her  immortal  namesake  in  "Esmond" 
and  "  The  Virginians  "  changes,  merely  to  suit  the  irreparable 
outrage  of  years.  The  end  has  unsavory  details,  which  have 
not,  as  the  repetition  of  them  in  more  tragic  form  a  little  later 
in  "La  Cousine  Bette  "  has,  the  justification  of  a  really  tragic 
retribution ;  and  a  man  must  have  a  great  deal  of  disinterested 
good-nature  about  him  to  feel  any  satisfaction,  or  indeed  to 
take  much  interest,  in  the  restoration  of  the  domestic  happi- 
ness of  two  such  persons  as  M.  and  Madame  de  Rochefide. 
Calyste  du  Guenic,  whose  character  was  earlier  rather  exag- 
gerated, is  now  almost  a  caricature,  and  to  me  at  least  the 
thing  is  not  much  excused  by  the  fact  that  it  gives  Balzac  an 
opportunity  of  introducing  his  pattern  gentleman-scoundrel, 

(ix) 


t  PREFACE. 

Maxime  de  Trailles,  and  his  pet  Bohemian,  La  Palfenne. 
The  many-named  Italian  here  indeed  plays  a  comparatively 
benevolent  part,  as  does  Trailles ;  but  they  are  both  as  great 
"  raffs  "  and  "  tigers  "  as  ever. 

The  first  and  larger  part  of  the  book,  on  the  other  hand — 
the  book  proper,  as  we  may  call  it — is  a  remarkable,  a  well- 
designed,  and  a  very  interesting  study.  It  is  not  so  much  of 
an  additional  attraction  to  me,  as  it  perhaps  is  to  most  people, 
that  contemporaries,  without  much  contradiction,  or  in  all 
cases  improbability,  chose  to  regard  the  parts  and  personages 
of  Felicite  des  Touches,  Beatrix  de  Rochefide,  Claud  Vignon, 
and  the  musician  Conti,  as  designed,  and  pretty  closely  de- 
signed, after  George  Sand,  Madame  d'Agoult  (known  as 
"  Daniel  Stern "),  Gustave  Planche,  the  critic,  and  Liszt. 
As  to  the  first  pair,  there  can,  of  course,  be  no  doubt ;  for 
Balzac,  by  representing  "Camille  Maupin  "  as  George  Sand's 
rival,  and  by  introducing  divers  ingenious  and  legitimate 
adaptations  of  the  famous  she-novelist's  career,  both  invites 
and,  in  a  way,  authorizes  the  attribution.  There  is  nothing 
offensive  in  it ;  indeed,  Felicite  is  one  of  the  most  effective 
and  sympathetic  of  his  female  characters,  and  would  always 
have  been  incapable  of  the  rather  heartless  action  by  which 
the  actual  George  Sand  amused  herself  intellectually  and  senti- 
mentally with  lover  after  lover,  and  then  threw  them  away. 
Unless  the  accounts  of  Planche  that  we  have  are  very  unfair — 
and  they  possibly  are,  for  he  was  a  critic,  and  was  particularly 
obnoxious  to  the  extreme  Romantic  school,  which  was  perhaps 
why  Balzac  liked  him — Claud  Vignon  is  a  still  more  flattered 
portrait,  though  Balzac's  low,  if  not  quite  impartial,  opinion 
of  critics  in  general  comes  out  in  it.  Conti  may  be  fair 
enough  for  Liszt ;  and  if  Beatrix  is  certainly  a  libel  on  poor 
Madame  d'Agoult,  it  must  be  remembered  that  this  later 
Madame  de  Stael  was  generally  misrepresented  in  her  lifetime, 
though  since  her  death  she  has  had  more  justice. 

The  "key  "-interest  of  books,  however,  is  always  a  minor, 


PREFACE.  xi 

and  sometimes  a  purely  illegitimate  one.  It  ought  to  be  suffi- 
cient for  us  that  the  interest  of  the  quartette,  even  if  there  had 
been  no  such  persons  as  George  Sand,  Daniel  Stern,  Planche, 
and  Liszt  in  the  world,  would  be  very  great,  and  that  it  is  well 
composed  with  and  maintained  by  the  accessory  and  auxiliary 
facts  and  characters.  The  picture  of  the  Guenic  household 
(which,  after  Balzac's  usual  fashion,  throws  us  back  to  "  Les 
Chouans,"  while  Beatrix  as  a  Casteran,  and  thus  a  connection 
of  the  luckless  Mile,  de  Verneuil,  is  also  connected  with  that 
book)  may  seem  to  some  to  be  a  little  too  fully  painted  ;  it 
does  not  seem  so  to  me.  Whether,  as  hinted  above,  the  char- 
acter of  Calyste  has  its  childishness  exaggerated  or  not,  I  must 
leave  to  readers  to  decide  for  themselves.  His  casting  of 
Beatrix  into  the  sea,  beside  being  illegal,  may  seem  to  some 
extravagant ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  Balzac  was 
originally  writing  when  the  heyday  of  the  Romantic  move- 
ment was  by  no  means  over,  and  when  melodrama  was  still 
pretty  fully  in  fashion.  It  is  difficult,  too,  to  see  what  better 
contrast  and  uniting  scheme  for  the  contrasted  worldlinesses 
of  the  four  chief  characters  could  have  been  devised ;  while 
the  childishness  itself  is  not  inconceivable  or  unnatural  in  a 
boy  brought  up  in  a  sort  of  household  of  romance  by  a  heroic 
father  and  a  doting  mother,  both  utterly  unworldly,  his  head 
being  further  fired  by  participation  in  actual  civil  war  on  be- 
half of  an  injured  princess,  and  his  heart  exposed  without 
preparation  to  such  different  influences  as  those  of  Mile,  des 
Touches  and  of  Beatrix. 

The  contrast  of  the  two  ladies  is  also  fine;  indeed,  Beatrix 
seems  to  me,  though  by  no  means  Balzac's  most  perfect  work, 
to  be  an  attempt  in  a  higher  style  of  novel  writing  than  any 
other  heroine  of  his.  It  is  impossible  not  to  suspect  in  Fe- 
licite,  good,  clever,  and  so  forth  as  she  is,  a  covert  satire  on 
the  variety  of  womankind  which  had  begun  to  be  fashionable. 
The  satire  on  the  unamiable  side  of  mere  womanliness  which 
the  sketch  of  Beatrix  contains  is,  of  course,  open  and  un- 


xS  PREFACE. 

deniable.  I  think  that  Thackeray  has  far  excelled  it,  but  I 
am  not  certain  that  he  was  not  indebted  to  it  as  a  pattern. 
The  fault  of  the  French  Beatrix  has  been  expressed  by  her 
creator  on  nearly  the  last  page  of  the  book.  A  woman  sans 
cceur  ni  ttte  may  do  a  great  deal  of  mischief;  but  she  cannot 
quite  play  the  part  attributed  to  Madame  de  Rochefide. 

The  two  first  parts  of  "Beatrix"  (in  which  Madame  de 
Rochefide  was  at  first  called  Roche^ak)  appeared  in  the 
"Siecle"  during  April  and  May,  1839,  with  the  alternative 
title  "ou  les  Amours  Forces,"  and  they  were  published  in 
book  form  by  Souverain  in  the  same  year.  They  were  then 
divided  briefly:  the  first  part,  which  was  called  "  Moeurs 
D' Autrefois"  in  the  "Siecle,"  and  "Une  Famille  Patri- 
arcale"  in  the  book,  had  eight  headed  chapters;  the  second 
("  Moeurs  D'Aujourdhui"  in  the  first,  "UneFemrae  Celebre" 
in  the  second)  eleven;  and  a  third  division,  "  Les  Rivalries," 
eight.  As  a  "Scene  de  la  Vie  Privee,"  which  it  became  in 
1842,  it  had  no  chapters;  it  was  little  altered  otherwise;  and 
the  present  completion  was  anticipated,  though  not  given,  in 
a  final  paragraph.  It  also  had  the  simple  title  of  "Beatrix." 
The  completion  itself  did  not  appear  till  the  midwinter  (De- 
cember-January) of  1844-45.  ty  was  first  called  "Les  Petits 
Maneges  d'une  Femme  Vertueuse  "  in  the  "Messager,"  and 
when,  shortly  afterward,  it  was  published  by  Chlendowski  as 
a  book,  "La  Lune  de  Miel."  In  these  forms  it  had  fifty-nine 
headed  chapters.  In  the  same  year,  however,  it  became,  with 
its  forerunners,  part  of  the  Comedie,  and  the  chapters  were 
swept  away  throughout. 

"  The  Purse  "  ("  La  Bourse  "),  though  agreeable,  is  a  little 
slight.  It  was  early  written,  apparently  for  the  second  edi- 
tion of  the  "  Scenes  de  la  Vie  Privee,"  in  which  it  appeared. 
In  1835  it  was  moved  over  to  the  "Scenes  de  la  Vie  Paris- 
ienne,"  between  which  and  the  Vie  Privee  there  is  in  fact  a 
good  deal  of  cross  and  arbitrary  division.  But  when  the  full 
Comedie  took  shape  it  moved  back  again.  G.  S. 


BEATRIX. 

To  Sarah. 

In  clear  weather,  on  the  Mediterranean  shore, 
where  formerly  your  name  held  elegant  sway,  the 
waves  sometimes  allow  us  to  perceive  beneath  the  mist 
of  waters  a  sea-flower,  one  of  JVaiure's  masterpieces ; 
the  lacework  of  its  tissue,  tinged  with  purple,  russet, 
rose,  violet,  or  gold,  the  crispness  of  that  living  fili- 
gree, the  velvet  texture,  all  vanish  as  soon  as  curiosity 
draivs  it  forth  and  spreads  it  on  the  strand. 

Thus  would  the  glare  of  publicity  o  fend  your  tender 
modesty ;  so,  in  dedicating  this  work  to  you,  I  must 
reserve  a  name  which  would,  indeed,  be  its  pride. 
But,  under  the  shelter  of  this  half- concealment,  your 
superb  hands  may  bless  it,  your  noble  brow  may  bend 
and  dream  over  it,  your  eyes,  full  of  motherly  love, 
may  smile  upon  it,  since  you  are  here  at  once  present 
and  veiled.  Like  that  gem  of  the  ocean-garden,  you 
will  dwell  on  the  fine,  white,  level  sand  where  your 
beautiful  life  expands,  hidden  by  a  wave  that  is  trans- 
parent only  to  certain  friendly  and  reticent  eyes. 

I  would  gladly  have  laid  at  your  feet  a  work  in 
harmony  with  your  perfections  ;  but  as  that  was  im- 
possible, I  knew,  for  my  consolation,  that  I  was  grat- 
ifying one  of  your  instincts  by  offering  you  something  to 
protect. 

De  Balzac. 


(1) 


PART  I. 

DRAMATIS    PERSONS. 

France,  and  more  especially  Brittany,  still  has  some  few 
towns  that  stand  entirely  outside  the  social  movement  which 
gives  a  character  to  the  nineteenth  century.  For  lack  of  rapid 
and  constant  communications  with  Paris,  connected  only  by 
an  ill-made  road  with  the  prefecture  or  chief  town  to  which 
they  belong,  these  places  hear  and  see  modern  civilization 
pass  by  like  a  spectacle ;  they  are  amazed,  but  they  do  not 
applaud  ;  and  whether  they  fear  it  or  make  light  of  it,  they 
remain  faithful  to  the  antiquated  manners  of  which  they  pre- 
serve the  stamp.  Any  one  who  should  travel  as  a  moral 
archaeologist,  and  study  men  instead  of  stones,  might  find  a 
picture  of  the  age  of  Louis  XV.  in  some  village  of  Provence, 
that  of  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.  in  the  depths  of  Poitou,  that 
of  yet  remoter  ages  in  the  heart  of  Brittany. 

Most  of  these  places  have  fallen  from  some  splendor  of 
which  history  has  kept  no  record,  busied  as  it  is  with  facts  and 
dates  rather  than  manners,  but  of  which  the  memory  still  sur- 
vives in  tradition  ;  as  in  Brittany,  where  the  character  of  the 
people  allows  no  forgetfulness  of  anything  that  concerns  the 
home  country.  Many  of  these  towns  have  been  the  capital 
of  some  little  feudal  territory — a  county  or  a  duchy  conquered 
by  the  Crown,  or  broken  up  by  inheritors  in  default  of  a  direct 
male  line.  Then,  deprived  of  their  activity,  these  heads  be- 
came arms ;  the  arms,  bereft  of  nutrition,  have  dried  up  and 
merely  vegetate  ;  and  within  these  thirty  years  these  images 
of  remote  times  are  beginning  to  die  out  and  grow  very  rare. 

Modern  industry,  toiling  for  the  masses,  goes  on  destroying 

the  creations  of  ancient  art,  for  its  outcome  was  as  personal  to 

the  purchaser  as  to  the  maker.      We  have  products  nowadays ; 

we   no   longer  have  works.      Buildings  play  a  large  part  in 

(2) 


BE  A  TRIX.  3 

the  phenomena  of  retrospection  ;  but  to  industry  buildings 
are  stone-quarries  or  saltpetre  mines,  or  warehouses  for  cotton. 
A  few  years  more  and  these  primitive  towns  will  be  trans- 
formed, known  no  more  except  in  this  literary  iconography. 

One  of  the  towns  where  the  physiognomy  of  the  feudal  ages 
is  still  most  plainly  visible  is  Guerande.  The  name  alone  will 
revive  a  thousand  memories  in  the  mind  of  painters,  artists, 
and  thinkers,  who  may  have  been  to  the  coast  and  have  seen 
this  noble  gem  of  feudality  proudly  perched  where  it  com- 
mands the  sand-hills  and  the  strand  at  low  tide,  the  top 
corner,  as  it  were,  of  a  triangle  at  whose  other  points  stand 
two  not  less  curious  relics — le  Croisic  and  le  Bourg  de  Batz. 
Beside  Guerande  there  are  but  two  places — Vitre,  in  the  very 
centre  of  Brittany,  and  Avignon,  in  the  south — which  preserve 
.  their  mediaeval  aspect  and  features  in  the  midst  of  our  century. 
Guerande  is  to  this  day  inclosed  by  mighty  walls,  its  wide 
moats  are  full  of  water,  its  battlements  are  unbroken,  its 
loopholes  are  not  filled  up  with  shrub,  the  ivy  has  thrown  no 
mantle  over  its  round  and  square  towers.  It  has  three  gates, 
where  the  rings  may  still  be  seen  for  suspending  the  port- 
cullis ;  it  is  entered  over  drawbridges  of  timber  shod  with 
iron,  which  could  be  raised,  though  they  are  raised  no  longer. 
The  municipality  was  blamed  in  1820  for  planting  poplars  by 
the  side  of  the  moat  to  shade  the  walk  ;  it  replied  that  on  the 
land  side,  by  the  sand-hills,  for  above  a  hundred  years,  the 
fine  long  esplanade  by  the  walls,  which  look  as  if  they  had 
been  built  yesterday,  had  been  made  into  a  mall  overshadowed 
by  elms,  where  the  inhabitants  took  their  pleasure. 

The  houses  have  known  no  changes  ;  they  are  neither  more 
nor  less  in  number.  Not  one  of  them  has  felt  on  its  face  the 
hammer  of  the  builder  or  the  brush  of  the  whitewasher,  nor 
trembled  under  the  weight  of  an  added  story.  They  all  re- 
tain their  primitive  character.  Some  are  raised  on  wooden 
columns  forming  "rows,"  under  which  there  is  a  footway, 
floored  with  planks  that  yield  but  do  not  break.     The  store- 


i  BEATRIX. 

dwellings  are  small  and  low,  and  faced  with  slate  shingles. 
Woodwork,  now  decayed,  has  been  largely  used  for  carved 
window-frames ;  and  the  beams,  prolonged  beyond  the  pillars, 
project  in  grotesque  heads,  or  at  the  angles,  in  the  form  of 
fantastic  creatures,  vivified  by  the  great  idea  of  art,  which  at 
that  time  lent  life  to  dead  matter.  These  ancient  things,  defy- 
ing the  touch  of  time,  offer  to  painters  the  brown  tones  and 
obliterated  lines  that  they  delight  in. 

The  streets  are  what  they  were  a  hundred  years  ago.  Only, 
as  the  population  is  thinner  now,  as  the  social  stir  is  less 
active,  a  traveler  curious  to  wander  through  this  town,  as  fine 
as  a  perfect  suit  of  antique  armor,  may  find  his  way,  not  un- 
touched by  melancholy,  down  an  almost  deserted  street,  where 
the  stone  window-frames  are  choked  with  concrete  to  avoid 
the  tax.  This  street  ends  at  a  postern-gate  built  up  with  a 
stone-wall,  and  crowned  by  a  clump  of  saplings  planted  there 
by  the  hand  of  Breton  Nature — France  can  hardly  show  a 
more  luxuriant  and  all-pervading  vegetation.  If  he  is  a  poet 
or  a  painter,  our  wanderer  will  sit  down,  absorbed  in  the 
enjoyment  of  the  perfect  silence  that  reigns  under  the  still 
sharp-cut  vaulting  of  this  side-gate,  whither  no  sound  comes 
from  the  peaceful  town,  whence  the  rich  country  may  be  seen 
in  all  its  beauty  through  loopholes,  once  held  by  archers  and 
cross-bowmen,  which  seem  placed  like  the  little  windows 
arranged  to  frame  a  view  from  a  summer-house. 

It  is  impossible  to  go  through  the  town  without  being  re- 
minded at  every  step  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  long  past 
times  ;  every  stone  speaks  of  them  ;  traditions  of  the  Middle 
Ages  survive  there  as  superstitions.  If  by  chance  a  gendarme 
passes  in  his  laced  hat,  his  presence  is  an  anachronism  against 
which  the  mind  protests  ;  but  nothing  is  rarer  than  to  meet  a 
being  or  a  thing  of  the  present.  There  is  little  to  be  seen 
even  of  the  dress  of  the  day  ;  so  much  of  it  as  the  natives 
have  accepted  has  become  to  some  extent  appropriate  to  their 
unchanging  habits  and  hereditary  physiognomy.    The  market- 


BE  A  TRIX.  5 

place  is  filled  with  Breton  costumes,  which  artists  come  here 
to  study,  and  which  are  amazingly  varied.  The  whiteness  of 
the  linen  clothes  worn  by  the  paludiers,  the  salt-workers  who 
collect  salt  from  the  pans  in  the  marshes,  contrasts  effectively 
with  the  blues  and  browns  worn  by  the  inland  peasants,  and 
the  primitive  jewelry  piously  preserved  by  the  women.  These 
two  classes  and  the  jacketed  seamen,  with  their  round,  var- 
nished leather  hats,  are  as  distinct  as  the  castes  in  India,  and 
they  still  recognize  the  distinctions  that  separate  the  towns- 
folk, the  clergy,  and  the  nobility.  Here  every  landmark  still 
exists;  the  revolutionary  plane  found  the  divisions  too  rugged 
and  too  hard  to  work  over ;  it  would  have  been  notched  if 
not  broken.  Here  the  immutability  which  nature  has  given 
to  zoological  species  is  to  be  seen  in  men.  In  short,  even 
since  the  revolution  of  1830,  Guerande  is  still  a  place  unique, 
essentially  Breton,  fervently  Catholic,  silent,  meditative,  where 
new  ideas  can  scarcely  penetrate. 

Its  geographical  position  accounts  for  this  singularity. 
This  pretty  town  overlooks  the  salt  marshes  ;  its  salt  is  indeed 
known  throughout  Brittany  as  Sel  de  Guerande,  and  to  its 
merits  many  of  the  natives  ascribe  the  excellence  of  their 
butter  and  sardines.  It  has  no  communication  with  the  rest 
of  France  but  by  two  roads,  one  leading  to  Savenay,  the  chief 
town  of  the  immediate  district,  and  thence  to  Saint-Nazaire; 
and  the  other  by  Vannes  on  to  Morbihan.  The  district  road 
connects  it  with  Nantes  by  land  ;  that  by  Saint-Nazaire  and 
then  by  boat  also  leads  to  Nantes.  The  inland  road  is  used 
only  by  the  Government,  the  shorter  and  more  frequented  way 
is  by  Saint-Nazaire.  Between  that  town  and  Guerande  lies  a 
distance  of  at  least  six  leagues,  which  the  mails  do  not  serve, 
and  for  a  very  good  reason — there  are  not  three  travelers  by 
coach  a  year.  Saint-Nazaire  is  divided  from  Paimboeuf  by 
the  estuary  of  the  Loire,  there  four  leagues  in  width.  The  bar 
of  the  river  makes  the  navigation  by  steamboat  somewhat  un- 
certain ;  and,  to  add  to  the  difficulties,  there  was,  in  1829,  no 


6  BE  A  TRIX. 

landing  quay  at  the  cape  of  Saint- Nazaire;  the  point  ended 
in  slimy  shoals  and  granite  reefs,  the  natural  fortifications  of 
its  picturesque  church,  compelling  arriving  voyagers  to  fling 
themselves  and  their  baggage  into  boats  when  the  sea  was 
high,  or,  in  fine  weather,  to  walk  across  the  rocks  as  far  as 
the  jetty  then  in  course  of  construction.  These  obstacles,  ill 
suited  to  invite  the  amateur,  may  perhaps  still  exist  there. 
In  the  first  place,  the  authorities  move  but  slowly ;  and  then 
the  natives  of  this  corner  of  land,  which  you  may  see  pro- 
jecting like  a  tooth  on  the  map  of  France  between  Saint- 
Nazaire,  le  Bourg  de  Batz,  and  le  Croisic,  are  very  well 
content  with  the  hindrances  that  protect  their  territory  from 
the  incursions  of  strangers. 

Thus  flung  down  on  the  edge  of  a  continent,  Guerande 
leads  no  whither,  and  no  one  ever  comes  there.  Happy  in 
being  unknown,  the  town  cares  only  for  itself.  The  centre 
of  the  immense  produce  of  the  salt  marshes,  paying  not  less 
than  a  million  francs  in  taxes,  is  at  le  Croisic,  a  peninsular 
town  communicating  with  Guerande  across  a  tract  of  shifting 
sands,  where  the  road  traced  each  day  is  washed  out  each 
night,  and  by  boats  indispensable  for  crossing  the  inlet, 
which  forms  the  port  of  le  Croisic,  and  which  encroaches  on 
the  sand.  Thus  this  charming  little  town  is  a  Herculaneum 
of  feudalism,  minus  the  winding-sheet  of  lava.  It  stands, 
but  is  not  alive ;  its  only  reason  for  surviving  is  that  it  has 
not  been  pulled  down. 

If  you  arrive  at  Guerande  from  le  Croisic,  after  crossing 
the  tract  of  salt  marshes,  you  are  startled  and  excited  at  the 
sight  of  this  immense  fortification,  apparently  quite  new. 
Coming  on  it  from  Saint-Nazaire,  its  picturesque  position  and 
the  rural  charm  of  the  neighborhood  are  no  less  fascinating. 
The  country  round  it  is  charming,  the  hedges  full  of  flowers — 
honeysuckles,  roses,  and  beautiful  shrubs ;  you  might  fancy  it 
was  an  English  wild-garden  planned  by  a  great  artist.  This 
rich  landscape,  so  homelike,  so   little  visited,  with  all  the 


BEATRIX.  7 

charm  of  a  clump  of  violets  or  lily-of-the-valley  found  in  the 
midst  of  a  forest,  is  set  in  an  African  desert  shut  in  by  the 
ocean — a  desert  without  a  tree,  without  a  blade  of  grass, 
without  a  bird,  where,  on  a  sunny  day,  the  marshmen,  dressed 
all  in  white,  and  scattered  at  wide  intervals  over  the  dismal 
flats  where  the  salt  is  collected,  look  just  like  Arabs  wrapped 
in  their  burnouse.  Indeed,  Guerande,  with  its  pretty  scenery 
inland,  and  its  desert  bounded  on  the  right  by  le  Croisic  and 
on  the  left  by  Batz,  is  quite  unlike  anything  else  to  be  seen  by 
the  traveler  in  France.  The  two  types  of  nature  so  strongly 
contrasted  and  linked  by  this  last  monument  of  feudal  life 
are  quite  indescribably  striking.  The  town  itself  has  the 
effect  on  the  mind  that  a  soporific  has  on  the  body ;  it  is  as 
soundless  as  Venice. 

There  is  no  public  conveyance  but  that  of  a  carrier  who 
transports  travelers,  parcels,  and  possibly  letters,  in  a  wretched 
vehicle,  from  Saint-Nazaire  to  Guerande  or  back  again. 
Bernus,  the  driver  of  this  conveyance,  was,  in  1829,  the  fac- 
totum of  the  whole  community.  He  goes  as  he  likes,  the 
whole  country  knows  him,  he  does  everybody's  commissions. 
The  arrival  of  a  carriage  is  an  immense  event — some  lady  who 
is  passing  through  Guerande  by  the  land  road  to  le  Croisic,  or 
a  few  old  invalids  on  their  way  to  take  sea-baths,  which 
among  the  rocks  of  this  peninsula  have  virtues  superior  to 
those  of  Boulogne,  Dieppe,  or  les  Sables.  The  peasants  come 
on  horseback,  and  for  the  most  part  bring  in  their  produce  in 
sacks.  They  come  hither  chiefly,  as  do  the  salt-makers,  for 
the  business  of  purchasing  the  jewelry  peculiar  to  their  caste, 
which  must  always  be  given  to  Breton  maidens  on  betrothal, 
and  the  white  linen  or  the  cloth  for  their  clothes.  For  ten 
leagues  round,  Guerande  is  still  that  illustrious  Guerande 
where  a  treaty  was  signed  famous  in  French  history ;  the  key 
of  the  coast,  displaying  no  less  than  le  Bourg  de  Batz  a  mag- 
nificence now  lost  in  the  darkness  of  ages.  The  jewelry,  the 
cloth,  the  linen,  the  ribbons,  and  hats  are  manufactured  else- 


8  BEATRIX 

where,  but  to  the  purchasers  they  are  the  specialty  of  Guer- 
ande. 

Every  artist,  nay,  and  every  one  who  is  not  an  artist,  who 
passes  through  Guerande,  feels  a  desire — soon  forgotten — to 
end  his  days  in  its  peace  and  stillness,  walking  out  in  fine 
weather  on  the  mall  that  runs  round  the  town  from  one  gate 
to  the  other  on  the  seaward  side.  Now  and  again  a  vision  of 
this  town  comes  to  knock  at  the  gates  of  memory ;  it  comes 
in  crowned  with  towers,  belted  with  walls ;  it  displays  its  robe 
strewn  with  lovely  flowers,  shakes  its  mantle  of  sand-hills, 
wafts  the  intoxicating  perfumes  of  its  pretty  thorn-hedged 
lanes,  decked  with  posies  lightly  flung  together;  it  fills  your 
mind,  and  invites  you  like  some  divine  woman  whom  you 
have  once  seen  in  a  foreign  land,  and  who  has  made  herself  a 
home  in  your  heart. 

Close  to  the  church  of  Guerande  a  house  may  be  seen 
which  is  to  the  town  what  the  town  is  to  the  country,  an 
exact  image  of  the  past,  the  symbol  of  a  great  thing  now 
gone,  a  poem.  This  house  belongs  to  the  noblest  family  in 
the  land — that  of  du  Guaisnic,  who,  in  the  time  of  the  du 
Guesclin,  were  as  superior  to  them  in  fortune  and  antiquity  as 
the  Trojans  were  to  the  Romans.  The  Guaisqlain  (also  for- 
merly spelt  du  Glaicquin) — which  has  become  Guesclin — are 
descended  from  the  Guaisnics.  The  Guaisnics,  as  old  as  the 
granite  of  Brittany,  are  neither  Franks  nor  Gauls  ;  they  are 
Bretons,  or,  to  be  exact,  Celts.  Of  old  they  must  have  been 
Druids,  have  cut  the  mistletoe  in  sacred  groves,  and  have 
sacrificed  men  on  dolmens.  To-day  this  race,  the  equals  of 
the  Rohans,  but  never  chosing  to  be  made  princes,  powerful 
in  the  land  before  Hugues  Capet's  ancestors  had  been  heard 
of,  this  family,  pure  from  every  alloy,  is  possessed  of  about 
two  thousand  francs  a  year,  this  house  at  Guerande,  and  the 
little  Castle  of  le  Guaisnic.  All  the  estates  belonging  to  the 
Barony  of  le  Guaisnic,   the  oldest  in  Brittany,   are   in  the 


BEATRIX.  9 

hands  of  farmers,  and  bring  in  about  sixty  thousand  francs  a 
year  in  spite  of  defective  culture.  The  du  Guaisnics  are  in- 
deed still  the  owners  of  the  land ;  but  as  they  cannot  pay  up 
the  capital  deposited  with  them  two  hundred  years  ago  by 
those  who  then  held  them,  they  cannot  take  the  income. 
They  are  in  the  position  of  the  French  Crown  toward  its 
tenants  in  1789.  When  and  where  could  the  barons  find  the 
million  francs  handed  over  to  them  by  their  farmers  ?  Until 
1789  the  tenure  of  the  fiefs  held  of  the  Castle  of  le  Guaisnic, 
which  stands  on  a  hill,  was  still  worth  fifty  thousand  francs ; 
but  by  a  single  vote  the  National  Assembly  suppressed  the 
fines  on  leases  and  sales  paid  to  the  feudal  lords.  In  such 
circumstances,  this  family,  no  longer  of  any  consequence  in 
France,  would  be  a  subject  of  ridicule  in  Paris  ;  at  Guerande, 
it  is  an  epitome  of  Brittany.  At  Guerande,  the  Baron  du 
Guaisnic  is  one  of  the  great  barons  of  France,  one  of  the  men 
above  whom  there  is  but  one — the  King  of  France,  chosen 
of  old  to  be  their  chief.  In  these  days  the  name  of  du  Guais- 
nic— full  of  local  meanings,  of  which  the  etymology  has  been 
explained  in  "  Les  Chouans  or  Brittany  in  1799  " — has  under- 
gone the  same  change  as  disfigures  that  of  du  Guaisqlain. 
The  tax-collector,  like  every  one  else,  writes  it  Guenic. 

At  the  end  of  a  silent,  damp,  and  gloomy  alley,  formed 
by  the  gabled  fronts  of-  the  neighboring  houses,  the  arch 
of  a  door  in  the  wall  may  be  seen,  high  and  wide  enough 
to  admit  a  horseman,  which  is  in  itself  sufficient  evidence 
of  the  house  having  been  finished  at  a  time  when  car- 
riages as  yet  were  not.  This  arch,  raised  on  jambs,  is  all 
of  granite.  The  door,  made  of  oak.  has  cracked  like 
the  bark  of  the  trees  that  furnished  the  timber,  and  is 
set  with  enormous  nails  in  a  geometrical  pattern.  The 
arch  is  coved,  and  displays  the  coat-of-arms  of  the  du 
Guaisnics,  as  sharp  and  clean-cut  as  though  the  carver  had 
but  just  finished  it.  This  shield  would  delight  an  ama- 
teur of  heraldry  by  its  simplicity,  testifying  to  the  pride  and 


10  BE  A  TRIX. 

the  antiquity  of  the  family.  It  is  still  the  same  as  on  the 
day  when  the  crusaders  of  the  Christian  world  invented  these 
symbols  to  know  each  other  by  ;  the  Guaisnics  have  never 
quartered  their  bearings  with  any  others.  It  is  always  true 
to  itself,  like  the  arms  of  France,  which  heralds  may  recog- 
nize borne  in  chief  or  quarterly  in  the  coats  of  the  oldest 
families.  This  is  the  blazon,  as  you  still  may  see  it  at  Guer- 
ande  :  Gules,  a  hand  proper  manched  ermine  holding  a  sword 
argent  in  pale,  with  this  tremendous  motto,  Fac.  Is  not  that 
a  fine  and  great  thing  ?  The  wreath  of  the  baronial  coronet 
surmounts  this  simple  shield,  on  which  the  vertical  lines,  used, 
instead  of  color,  to  represent  gules,  are  still  clear  and  sharp. 

The  sculptor  has  given  an  indescribable  look  of  pride  and 
chivalry  to  the  hand.  With  what  vigor  does  it  hold  the 
sword  which  has  done  the  family  service  only  yesterday  !  In- 
deed, if  you  should  go  to  Guerande  after  reading  this  story, 
you  will  not  look  at  that  coat-of-arms  without  a  thrill.  The 
most  determined  Republican  cannot  fail  to  be  touched  by  the 
fidelity,  the  nobleness,  and  the  dignity  buried  at  the  bottom 
of  that  narrow  street.  The  du  Guaisnics  did  well  yesterday; 
they  are  ready  to  do  well  to-morrow.  "  To  do  "  is  the  great 
word  of  chivalrv.  "You  did  well  in  the  fight"  was  alwavs 
the  praise  bestowed  by  the  High  Constable  par  excellence, 
the  great  du  Guesclin,  who  for  a  while  drove  the  English 
out  of  France.  The  depth  of  the  carving,  protected  from 
the  weather  by  the  projecting  curved  margin  of  the  arch, 
seems  in  harmony  with  the  deeply  graven  moral  of  the  motto 
in  the  spirit  of  this  family.  To  those  who  know  the  Guaisnics 
this  peculiarity  is  very  pathetic. 

The  open  door  reveals  a  fairly  large  courtyard  with  stables 
to  the  right  and  kitchen  offices  to  the  left.  The  house  is 
built  of  squared  stone  from  cellar  to  garret.  The  front  to  the 
courtyard  has  a  double  flight  of  outside  steps ;  the  decorated 
landing  at  the  top  is  covered  with  vestiges  of  sculpture  much 
injured  by  time ;  but  the  eye  of  the  antiquarian  can  still  dis- 


BEATRIX.  11 

tinguish  in  the  centre-piece  of  the  principal  ornament  the 
hand  holding  the  sword.  Below  this  elegant  balcony,  graced 
with  mouldings  now  broken  in  many  places,  and  polished 
here  and  there  by  long  use,  is  a  little  lodge,  once  occupied 
by  a  watch-dog.  The  stone  balustrade  is  disjointed,  and 
weeds,  tiny  flowers,  and  mosses  sprout  in  the  seams  and  on 
the  steps,  which  ages  have  dislodged  without  destroying  their 
solidity.  The  door  into  the  house  must  have  been  pretty  in 
its  day.  So  far  as  the  remains  allow  us  to  judge,  it  must  have 
been  wrought  by  an  artist  trained  in  the  great  Venetian  school 
of  the  thirteenth  century;  it  shows  a  singular  combination 
of  the  Mauresque  and  Byzantine  styles,  and  is  crowned  by  a 
semicircular  bracket,  which  is  overgrown  with  plants,  a  posy 
of  rose,  yellow,  brown,  or  blue,  according  to  the  season. 
The  door,  of  nail-studded  oak,  opens  into  a  vast  hall,  beyond 
which  is  a  similar  door  leading  to  such  another  balcony,  and 
steps  down  into  the  garden. 

This  hall  is  in  wonderful  preservation.  The  wainscot,  up 
to  the  height  of  a  man's  elbow,  is  in  chestnut-wood;  the 
walls  above  are  covered  with  splendid  Spanish  leather  stamped 
in  relief,  its  gilding  rubbed  and  rusty.  The  ceiling  is  coffered, 
artistically  moulded,  painted,  and  gilt,  but  the  gold  is 
scarcely  visible ;  it  is  in  the  same  condition  as  that  on  the 
cordova  leather ;  a  few  red  flowers  and  green  leaves  can  still 
be  seen.  It  seems  probable  that  cleaning  would  revive  the 
paintings  and  show  them  to  be  like  those  which  decorate  the 
woodwork  of  the  House  at  Tours,  called  la  Maison  de  Tristan, 
which  would  prove  that  they  had  been  restored  or  repaired  in 
the  time  of  Louis  XI.  The  fireplace  is  enormous,  of  carved 
stone,  with  huge  wrought-iron  dogs  of  the  finest  workmanship. 
They  would  carry  a  cartload  of  logs.  All  the  seats  in  this 
hall  are  of  oak,  and  have  the  family  shield  carved  on  their 
backs.  Hanging  to  nails  on  the  wall  are  three  English  mus- 
kets, fit  alike  for  war  or  for  sport,  three  cavalry  swords,  two 
game-bags,  and  various  tackle  for  hunting  and  fishing. 


12  BE  A  TRIX. 

On  one  side  is  the  dining-room,  communicating  with  the 
kitchen  by  a  door  in  a  corner  turret.  This  turret  corresponds 
with  another  in  the  general  design  of  the  front,  containing  a 
winding-stair  up  to  the  two  stories  above.  The  dining-room 
is  hung  with  tapestries  dating  from  the  fourteenth  century; 
the  style  and  spelling  of  the  legends  on  ribbons  below  each 
figure  prove  their  antiquity;  but  as  they  are  couched  in  the 
frank  language  of  the  Fabliaux,*  they  cannot  be  transcribed 
here.  These  pieces,  which  are  well  preserved  in  the  corners 
where  the  light  has  not  faded  them,  are  set  in  frames  of  carved 
oak  now  as  black  as  ebony.  The  ceiling  is  supported  on 
beams  carved  with  foliage,  and  all  different;  the  flats  between 
are  of  painted  wood,  wreaths  of  flowers  on  a  blue  ground. 
Two  old  dressers  with  cupboards  face  each  other;  and  on  the 
shelves,  rubbed  with  Breton  perseverance  by  Mariotte  the 
cook,  may  be  seen  now — as  at  the  time  when  kings  were  quite 
as  poor  in  1200  as  the  du  Guaisnics  in  1830 — four  old  goblets, 
an  ancient  soup-tureen,  and  two  salt-cellars  in  silver,  a  quan- 
tity of  metal  plates,  a  number  of  blue  and  gray  stoneware 
pitchers  with  arabesque  designs  and  the  du  Guaisnic  arms, 
and  crowned  with  hinged  metal  lids. 

The  fireplace  has  been  modernized  ;  its  state  shows  that 
since  the  last  century  this  has  been  the  family  sitting-room. 
It  is  of  carved  stone  in  the  Louis  XV.  style,  surmounted  by  a 
mirror  framed  in  a  beaded  and  gilt  moulding.  This  anachro- 
nism, to  which  the  family  is  indifferent,  would  grieve  a  poet. 
On  the  shelf,  covered  with  red  velvet,  there  stands  in  the 
middle  a  clock  of  tortoise-shell,  inlaid  with  brass,  flanked  by  a 
pair  of  silver  candelabra  of  strange  design.  A  large  table  on 
heavy  twisted  legs  stands  in  the  middle  of  the  room  ;  the 
chairs  are  of  turned  wood,  covered  with  tapestry.  A  round- 
table  with  a  centre  leg  and  claw  carved  to  represent  a  vine- 
stock  stands  in  front  of  the  window  to  the  garden,  and  on  it 

*  Ancient  stories  in  verse. 


BEA  TRIX.  13 

stands  a  quaint  lamp.  This  lamp  is  formed  of  a  globe  of 
common  glass,  rather  smaller  than  an  ostrich's  egg,  held  in  a 
candlestick  by  a  glass  knob  at  the  bottom.  From  an  opening 
at  the  top  comes  a  flat  wick  in  a  sort  of  brass  nozzle  ;  the  plait 
of  cotton,  curled  up  like  a  worm  in  a  phial,  is  fed  with  nut 
oil  from  the  glass  vessel.  The  window  looking  out  on  the 
garden,  like  that  on  the  courtyard — for  they  are  alike — has 
stone  mullions  and  hexagon  panes  set  in  lead  ;  they  are  hung 
with  curtains  and  valances,  decorated  with  heavy  tassels  of  an 
old-fashioned  stuff — red  silk  shot  with  yellow,  formerly  known 
as  brocatelle  or  damask. 

Each  floor  of  the  house — there  are  but  two  below  the  attics 
— consists  of  only  two  rooms.  The  second  floor  was  of  old 
inhabited  by  the  head  of  the  family ;  the  third  was  given  up  to 
the  children ;  guests  were  lodged  in  the  attic  rooms.  The 
servants  were  housed  over  the  kitchens  and  stables.  The 
sloping  roof,  leaded  at  every  angle,  has  to  the  front  and  back 
alike  a  noble  dormer  window  with  a  pointed  arch,  almost  as 
high  as  the  ridge  of  the  roof,  supported  on  graceful  brackets  ; 
but  the  carving  of  the  stone  is  worn  and  eaten  by  the  salt  vapor 
of  the  atmosphere.  Above  the  windows,  divided  into  four  by 
mullions  of  carved  stone,  the  aristocratic  weathercock  still 
creaks  as  it  veers. 

A  detail,  precious  by  its  originality  and  not  devoid  of 
merit  in  the  eyes  of  the  archaeologist,  must  not  be  overlooked. 
The  turret  containing  the  winding  stairs  finishes  the  angle  of  a 
broad  gabled  wall  in  which  there  is  no  window.  The  stairs 
go  down  to  a  small  arched  door,  opening  on  a  sandy  plot 
dividing  the  house  from  the  outer  wall  which  forms  the  back 
of  the  stables.  The  turret  is  repeated  at  the  corner  of  the 
garden-front ;  but,  instead  of  being  circular,  this  turret  has 
five  angles  and  a  hemispherical  dome ;  also,  it  is  crowned  by 
a  little  belfry  instead  of  carrying  a  conical  cap  like  its  sister. 
This  is  how  those  elegant  architects  lent  variety  to  symmetry. 
On  the  level  of  the  second  floor  these  turrets  are  connected 

O 


14  BEATRIX. 

by  a  stone  balcony,  supported  by  brackets  like  prows  with 
human  heads.  This  outside  gallery  has  a  balustrade  wrought 
with  marvelous  elegance  and  finish.  Then  from  the  top  of 
the  gable,  below  which  there  is  a  single  small  loophole,  falls 
an  ornamental  stone  canopy,  like  those  which  are  seen  over 
the  heads  of  saints  in  a  cathedral  porch.  Each  turret  has  a 
pretty  little  doorway  under  a  pointed  arch,  opening  on  to 
this  balcony.  Thus  did  the  architects  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury turn  to  account  the  bare,  cold  wall  which  is  presented  to 
us  in  modern  times  by  the  end-section  of  a  house. 

Cannot  you  see  a  lady  walking  on  this  balcony  in  the  morn- 
ing and  looking  out  over  Guerande  to  where  the  sun  sheds 
a  golden  light  on  the  sands  and  is  mirrored  in  the  face  of  the 
ocean  ?  Do  you  not  admire  this  wall  with  itsfinial  and  gable, 
furnished  at  its  corners  with  these  reed-like  turrets — one  sud- 
denly rounded  off  like  a  swallow's  nest,  the  other  displaying 
its  little  door  and  gothic  arch  decorated  with  the  hand  and 
sword  ? 

The  other  end  of  the  Hotel  du  Guaisnic  joins  on  to  the  next 
house. 

The  harmony  of  effect  so  carefully  aimed  at  by  the  builders 
of  that  period  is  preserved  in  the  front  to  the  courtyard  by 
the  turret  corresponding  to  that  containing  the  winding  stair 
or  vyse,  an  old  word  derived  from  the  French  vis.  It  serves 
as  a  passage  from  the  dining-room  to  the  kitchen,  but  it  ends 
at  the  second  floor,  and  is  capped  by  a  little  cupola  on  pillars 
covering  a  blackened  statue  of  Saint  Calixtus. 

The  garden  is  sumptuous  within  its  ancient  inclosure;  it  is 
more  than  half  an  acre  in  extent,  and  the  walls  are  covered 
with  fruit  trees ;  the  square  beds  for  vegetables  are  marked 
out  by  standards,  and  kept  by  a  manservant  named  Gasselin, 
who  also  takes  charge  of  the  horses.  At  the  bottom  of  the 
garden  is  an  arbor  with  a  bench  under  it.  In  the  midst 
stands  a  sundial.     The  paths  are  graveled. 

The  garden-front  has  no  second  turret  to  correspond  with 


BE  A  TRIX.  15 

that  at  the  corner  of  the  gable  ;  to  make  up  for  this  there  is  a 
column  with  a  spiral  twist  from  bottom  to  top,  which  of  old 
must  have  borne  the  standard  of  the  family,  for  it  ends  in  a 
large  rusty  iron  socket  in  which  lank  weeds  are  growing.  This 
ornament,  harmonizing  with  the  remains  of  stonework,  shows 
that  the  building  was  designed  by  a  Venetian  architect ;  this 
elegant  standard  is  like  a  sign  manual  left  by  Venice,  and  re- 
vealing the  chivalry  and  refinement  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
If  there  could  still  be  any  doubt,  the  character  of  the  details 
would  remove  them.  The  trefoils  of  the  Guaisnic  house  have 
four  leaves.  This  variant  betrays  the  Venetian  school  debased 
by  its  trade  with  the  East,  since  the  semi-Mauresque  architects, 
indifferent  to  Catholic  symbolism,  gave  the  trefoil  a  fourth 
leaf,  while  Christian  architects  remained  faithful  to  the  emblem 
of  the  Trinity.  From  this  point  of  view  Venetian  inventive- 
ness was  heretical. 

If  this  house  moves  you  to  admiration,  you  will  wonder, 
perhaps,  why  the  present  age  never  repeats  these  miracles  of 
art.  In  our  day  such  fine  houses  are  sold  and  pulled  down, 
and  make  way  for  streets.  Nobody  knows  whether  the  next 
generation  will  keep  up  the  ancestral  home,  where  each  one 
abides  as  in  an  inn  ;  whereas  formerly  men  labored,  or  at 
least  believed  that  they  labored,  for  an  eternal  posterity. 
Hence  the  beauty  of  their  houses.  Faith  in  themselves 
worked  wonders,  as  much  as  faith  in  God. 

With  regard  to  the  arrangement  and  furniture  of  the  upper 
stories,  thev  can  only  be  imagined  from  this  description  of 
the  first  floor  and  from  the  appearance  and  habits  of  the 
family.  For  the  last  fifty  years  the  du  Guaisnics  have  never 
admitted  a  visitor  into  any  room  but  these  two,  which,  like 
the  courtyard  and  the  external  features  of  the  house,  are  redo- 
lent of  the  grace,  the  spirit,  and  originality  of  the  noble 
province  of  old  Brittany. 

Without  this  topography  and  description  of  the  town,  with- 
out this  detailed  picture  of  their  home,  the  singular  figures  of 


16  BE  A  TRIX. 

the  family  dwelling  there  might  have  been  less  well  under- 
stood. The  frame  was  necessarily  placed  before  the  portraits. 
Everyone  must  feel  that  mere  things  have  an  effect  on  people. 
There  are  buildings  whose  influence  is  visible  on  the  persons 
who  live  near  them.  It  is  difficult  to  be  irreligious  under  the 
shadow  of  a  cathedral  like  that  of  Bourges.  The  soul  that  is 
constantly  reminded  of  its  destiny  by  imagery  finds  it  less 
easy  to  fall  short  of  it.  So  thought  our  ancestors,  but  the 
opinion  is  no  longer  held  by  a  generation  which  has  neither 
symbols  nor  distinctions,  while  its  manners  change  every  ten 
years.  Do  you  not  expect  to  find  the  Baron  du  Guaisnic, 
sword  in  hand — or  all  this  picture  will  be  false  ? 

In  1836,  when  this  drama  opens,  in  the  early  days  of 
August,  the  family  consisted  still  of  Monsieur  and  Madame 
du  Guenic,  of  Mademoiselle  du  Guenic,  the  Baron's  elder 
sister,  and  of  a  son  aged  one-and-twenty,  named  Gaudebert- 
Calyste-Louis,  in  obedience  to  an  old  custom  in  the  family. 
His  father's  name  was  Gaudebert-Calyste-Charles.  Only  the 
last  name  was  ever  changed ;  Saint-Gaudebert  and  Saint- 
Calixtus  were  always  the  patrons  of  the  Guenics. 

The  Baron  du  Guenic  had  gone  forth  from  Guerande  as 
soon  as  la  Vendee  and  Brittany  had  taken  up  arms,  and  he 
had  fought  with  Charette,  with  Catelineau,  la  Rochejaquelein, 
d'Elbee,  Bonchamps,  and  the  Prince  de  Loudon.  Before  go- 
ing, he  had  sold  all  his  possessions  to  his  elder  sister,  Made- 
moiselle Zephirine  du  Guenic,  a  stroke  of  prudence  unique  in 
Revolutionary  annals.  After  the  death  of  all  the  heroes  of 
the  West,  the  Baron,  preserved  by  some  miracle  from  ending 
as  they  did,  would  not  yield  to  Napoleon.  He  fought  on  till 
1802,  when,  having  narrowly  escaped  capture,  he  came  back 
to  Guerande,  and  from  Guerande  went  to  le  Croisic,  whence 
he  sailed  to  Ireland — faithful  to  the  traditional  hatred  of  the 
Bretons  for  England. 

The  good  people  of  Guerande  pretended  not  to  know  that 


BE  A  TRIX.  17 

the  Baron  was  alive  ;  during  twenty  years  not  a  word  be- 
trayed him.  Mademoiselle  du  Guenic  collected  the  rents, 
and  sent  the  money  to  her  brother  through  the  hands  of 
fishermen. 

In  1813,  Monsieur  du  Guenic  came  back  to  Guerande  with 
as  little  fuss  as  if  he  had  been  spending  the  summer  at  Nantes. 
During  his  sojourn  in  Dublin,  in  spite  of  his  fifty  years,  the 
Breton  noble  had  fallen  in  love  with  a  charming  Irish  girl,  the 
daughter  of  one  of  the  oldest  and  poorest  houses  of  that  un- 
happy country.  Miss  Fanny  O'Brien  was  at  that  time  one- 
and-twenty.  The  Baron  du  Guenic  came  to  fetch  the  papers 
needed  for  his  marriage,  went  back  to  be  married,  and  re- 
turned ten  months  later,  at  the  beginning  of  1814,  with  his 
wife,  who  gave  birth  to  a  son  on  the  very  day  when  Louis 
XVIII.  landed  at  Calais — which  accounts  for  the  name  of 
Louis. 

The  loyal  old  man  was  now  seventy-three  years  old,  but  the 
guerilla  warfare  against  the  Republic,  his  sufferings  during 
five  sea-voyages  in  open  boats,  and  his  life  at  Dublin,  had  all 
told  on  him  ;  he  looked  more  than  a  hundred.  Hence,  never 
had  there  been  a  Guenic  whose  appearance  was  in  more  perfect 
harmony  with  the  antiquity  of  the  house  built  at  a  time  when 
a  court  was  held  at  Guerande. 

Monsieur  du  Guenic  was  a  tall  old  man,  upright,  shriveled, 
strongly  knit  and  lean.  His  oval  face  was  puckered  by  a 
thousand  wrinkles,  forming  arched  fringes  above  the  cheek- 
bones and  eyebrows,  giving  his  face  some  resemblance  to  those 
of  the  old  men  painted  with  such  a  loving  brush  by  Van  Os- 
tade,  Rembrandt,  Mieris,  and  Gerard  Dow — heads  that  need 
a  magnifying  glass  to  show  their  finish.  His  countenance  was 
buried,  as  it  were,  under  these  numerous  furrows  produced  by 
an  open-air  life,  by  the  habit  of  scanning  the  horizon  in  the 
sunshine,  .at  sunrise,  and  at  the  fall  of  day.  But  the  sym- 
pathetic observer  could  still  discern  the  imperishable  forms 
of  the  human  face,  which  always  speak  to  the  soul  even  when 
2 


18  BE  A  TRIX. 

the  eye  sees  no  more  than  a  death's  head.  The  firm  modeling 
of  the  features,  the  high  brow,  the  sternness  of  outline,  the 
severe  nose,  the  form  of  the  bones  which  wounds  alone  can 
alter,  expressed  disinterested  courage,  boundless  faith,  im- 
plicit obedience,  incorruptible  fidelity,  unchanging  affection. 
In  him  the  granite  of  Brittany  was  made  man. 

The  Baron  had  no  teeth.  His  lips,  once  red,  but  now 
blue,  were  supported  only  by  the  hardened  gums  with  which 
he  ate  the  bread  his  wife  took  care  first  to  soften  by  wrapping 
it  in  a  damp  cloth,  and  they  were  sunk  in  his  face  while  pre- 
serving a  proud  and  threatening  smile.  His  chin  aimed  at 
touching  his  nose  ;  but  the  character  of  that  nose — high  in 
the  middle — showed  his  Breton  vigor  and  power  of  resistance. 
His  complexion,  marbled  with  red  that  showed  through  the 
wrinkles,  was  that  of  a  full-blooded,  high-tempered  man,  able 
to  endure  the  fatigues  which  had  often,  no  doubt,  saved  him 
from  apoplexy.  The  head  was  crowned  with  hair  as  white  as 
silver,  falling  in  curls  on  his  shoulders.  His  face,  that  seemed 
partly  extinct,  still  lived  by  the  brightness  of  a  pair  of  black 
eyes,  sparkling  in  their  dark,  sunken  sockets,  and  flashing 
with  the  last  fires  of  a  generous  and  loyal  soul.  The  eyebrows 
and  eyelashes  were  gone.  The  skin  had  set,  and  would  not 
yield  ;  the  difficulty  of  shaving  compelled  the  old  man  to 
grow  a  fan-shaped  beard. 

What  a  painter  would  most  have  admired  in  this  old  lion 
of  Brittany,  with  his  broad  shoulders  and  sinewy  breast,  was 
the  hands,  splendid  soldier's  hands — hands  such  as  du  Gues- 
clin's  must  have  been,  broad,  firm,  and  hairy;  the  hands  that 
had  seized  the  sword  never  to  relinquish  it — any  more  than 
Jeanne  d'Arc's — till  the  day  when  the  royal  standard  floated 
in  the  Cathedral  at  Reims ;  hands  that  had  often  streamed 
with  blood  from  the  thorns  of  the  Bocage — the  thickets  of  la 
Vendee — that  had  pulled  the  oar  in  the  Marais  to  steal  upon 
the  "  blues,"  or  on  the  open  sea  to  help  Georges  to  land  ;  the 
hands  of  a  partisan  and  of  a  gunner,  of  a  private  and  of  a 


BE  A  TR1X.  19 

captain  ;  hands  that  were  now  white,  though  the  Bourbons  of 
the  elder  branch  were  in  exile  ;  but  if  you  looked  at  them, 
you  could  see  certain  recent  marks  revealing  that  the  Baron, 
not  so  long  ago,  had  joined  Madame  in  la  Vendee,  since  the 
truth  may  now  be  told.  These  hands  were  a  living  commen- 
tary on  the  noble  motto  to  which  no  Guenic  had  ever  been 
false,  "Facf" 

The  forehead  attracted  attention  by  the  golden  tone  on  the 
temples,  in  contrast  with  the  tan  of  that  narrow,  hard,  set 
brow  to  which  baldness  had  given  height  enough  to  add 
majesty  to  the  noble  ruin.  The  whole  countenance,  some- 
what unintellectual  it  must  be  owned — and  how  should  it  be 
otherwise  ? — had,  like  the  other  Breton  faces  grouped  about 
it,  a  touch  of  savagery,  a  stolid  calm,  like  the  impassibility 
of  Huron  Indians,  an  indescribable  stupidity,  due  perhaps  to 
the  complete  reaction  that  follows  on  excessive  fatigue  when 
the  animal  alone  is  left  evident.  Thought  was  rare  there; 
it  was  visibly  an  effort ;  its  seat  was  in  the  heart  rather  than 
the  head ;  and  its  outcome  was  action  rather  than  an  idea. 
But  on  studying  this  fine  old  man  with  sustained  attention, 
the  mystery  could  be  detected  of  this  practical  antagonism  to 
the  spirit  of  the  age.  His  feelings  and  beliefs  were,  so  to 
speak,  intuitive,  and  saved  him  all  thought.  He  had  learned 
his  duties  by  dint  of  living.  Religion  and  institutions  thought 
for  him.  Hence  he  and  his  kindred  reserved  their  powers  of 
mind  for  action,  without  frittering  them  on  any  of  the  things 
they  thought  useless,  though  others  considered  them  import- 
ant. He  brought  his  thought  out  of  his  mind  as  he  drew 
his  sword  from  the  scabbard,  dazzling  with  rectitude  like  the 
hand  in  its  ermine  sleeve  on  his  coat-of-arms.  As  soon  as 
this  secret  was  understood  everything  was  clear.  It  explained 
the  depth  of  the  resolutions  due  to  clear,  definite,  loyal  ideas, 
as  immaculate  as  ermine.  It  accounted  for  the  sale  to  his 
sister  before  the  war,  though  to  him  it  had  meant  everything 
— death,  confiscation,  exile.     The  beauty  of  these  two  old 


20  BEATRIX. 

persons'  characters — for  the  sister  lived  only  in  and  for  her 
brother — cannot  be  fully  appreciated  by  the  selfish  habits 
which  lie  at  the  root  of  the  uncertainty  and  changefulness  of 
our  day.  An  archangel  sent  down  to  read  their  hearts  would 
not  have  found  in  them  a  single  thought  bearing  the  stamp 
of  self.  In  1814,  when  the  priest  of  Guerande  hinted  to 
Baron  du  Guenic  that  he  should  go  to  Paris  to  claim  his  re- 
ward, the  old  sister,  though  avaricious  for  the  family,  ex- 
claimed— 

"  Shame  !     Need  my  brother  go  begging  like  a  vagrant  ?" 

"It  would  be  supposed  that  I  had  served  the  King  from 
interested  motives,"  said  the  old  man.  "  Beside,  it  is  his 
business  to  remember.  And,  after  all,  the  poor  King  has 
enough  to  do  with  all  who  are  harassing  him.  If  he  were  to 
give  France  away  piecemeal,  he  would  still  be  asked  for 
more." 

This  devoted  servant,  who  cared  so  loyally  for  Louis 
XVIII.,  received  a  colonelcy,  the  cross  of  Saint-Louis,  and 
a  pension  of  two  thousand  francs. 

"  The  King  has  remembered  !  "  he  exclaimed,  on  receiving 
his  letters  patent. 

No  one  undeceived  him.  The  business  had  been  carried 
through  by  the  Due  de  Feltre  from  the  lists  of  the  Army 
of  la  Vendee,  in  which  he  found  the  name  of  du  Guenic 
with  a  few  other  Breton  names  ending  in  ic. 

And  so,  in  gratitude  to  the  King,  the  Baron  stood  a 
siege  at  Guerande  in  1815  against  the  forces  of  General 
Travot ;  he  would  not  surrender  the  stronghold  ;  and  when 
he  was  compelled  to  evacuate,  he  made  his  escape  into  the 
woods  with  a  party  of  Chouans,  who  remained  under  arms 
till  the  second  return  of  the  Bourbons.  Guerande  still 
preserves  the  memory  of  this  last  siege.  If  the  old  Breton 
trainbands  had  but  joined,  the  war  begun  by  this  heroic 
resistance  would  have  fired  the  whole  of  la  Vendee. 

It    must    be   confessed    that    the    Baron    du    Guenic   was 


BE  A  TRIX.  21 

wholly  illiterate — as  illiterate  as  a  peasant;  he  could  read, 
write,  and  knew  a  little  of  arithmetic;  he  understood  the 
art  of  war  and  heraldry  ;  but  he  had  not  read  three  books 
in  his  life  beside  his  prayer-book. 

His  dress,  a  not  unimportant  detail,  was  always  the  same ; 
it  consisted  of  heavy  shoes,  thick  woolen  stockings,  velvet 
breeches  of  a  greenish  hue,  a  cloth  vest,  and  a  coat  with  a 
high  collar,  on  which  hung  the  cross  of  Saint-Louis. 

Beautiful  peace  rested  on  this  countenance,  which,  for  a 
year  past,  frequent  slumber,  the  precursor  of  death,  seemed 
to  be  preparing  for  eternal  rest.  This  constant  sleepiness, 
increasing  day  by  day,  did  not  distress  his  wife,  nor  his  now 
blind  sister,  nor  his  friends,  whose  medical  knowledge  was 
not  great.  To  them  these  solemn  pauses  of  a  blameless 
but  weary  soul  were  naturally  accounted  for — the  Baron  had 
done  his  duty.     This  told  all. 

In  this  house  the  predominant  interest  centred  in  the 
fate  of  the  deposed  elder  branch.  The  future  of  the  exiled 
Bourbons  and  the  Catholic  religion,  and  the  influence  of 
the  new  politics  on  Brittany,  exclusively  absorbed  the  Baron's 
family.  No  other  interest  mingled  with  these  but  the  affec- 
tion they  all  felt  for  the  son  of  the  house,  Calyste,  the  heir 
and  only  hope  of  the  great  name  of  du  Guenic.  The  old 
Vendeen,  the  old  Chouan,  had  shown  a  sort  of  renewal  of 
his  youth  a  few  years  since,  to  give  his  son  the  habit  of  those 
athletic  exercises  that  befit  a  gentleman  who  may  be  called 
upon  to  fight  at  any  moment.  As  soon  as  Calyste  reached 
the  age  of  sixteen,  his  father  had  gone  out  with  him  in  the 
woods  and  marshes,  teaching  him  by  the  pleasures  of  sport 
the  rudiments  of  war,  preaching  by  example,  resisting  fatigue, 
steadfast  in  the  saddle,  sure  of  his  aim,  whatever  the  game 
might  be,  ground  game  or  birds,  reckless  in  overcoming  ob- 
stacles, inciting  his  son  to  face  danger  as  though  he  had  ten 
children  to  spare. 

Then,   when  the  Duchesse  de   Berry  came  to   France    to 


22  BE  A  TRIX. 

conquer  the  kingdom,  the  father  carried  off  his  son  to  make 
him  act  on  the  family  motto.  The  Baron  set  out  in  the  night 
without  warning  his  wife,  who  might  perhaps  have  displayed 
her  emotion,  leading  his  only  child  under  fire  as  if  it  were  to 
a  festival,  and  followed  by  Gasselin,  his  only  vassal,  who  rode 
forth  gleefully.  The  three  men  of  the  house  were  away  for 
six  months,  without  sending  any  news  to  the  Baroness — who 
never  read  the  "  Quotidienne  "  without  quaking  over  every 
line — nor  to  her  old  sister-in-law,  heroically  upright,  whose 
brow  never  flinched  as  she  listened  to  the  paper.  So  the 
three  muskets  hanging  in  the  hall  had  seen  service  re- 
cently. The  Baron,  in  whose  opinion  this  call  to  arms  was 
unavailing,  had  left  the  field  before  the  -fight  at  La  Penis- 
siere,  otherwise  the  noble  race  of  Guenic  might  have  become 
extinct. 

When,  one  night  of  dreadful  weather,  the  father,  son,  and 
serving-man  had  reached  home  after  taking  leave  of  Madame, 
surprising  their  friends,  the  Baroness  and  old  Mademoiselle 
du  Guenic — though  she,  by  a  gift  bestowed  on  all  blind 
people,  had  recognized  the  steps  of  three  men  in  the  little 
street — the  Baron  looked  around  on  the  circle  of  his  anxious 
friends  gathered  around  the  little  table  lighted  up  by  the 
antique  lamp,  and  merely  said,  in  a  quavering  voice,  while 
Gasselin  hung  up  the  muskets  and  swords  in  their  place,  these 
words  of  feudal  simplicity — 

"  Not  all  the  Barons  did  their  duty." 

Then  he  kissed  his  wife  and  sister,  sat  down  in  his  old  arm- 
chair, and  ordered  supper  for  his  son,  himself,  and  Gasselin. 
Gasselin,  having  screened  Calyste  with  his  body,  had  received 
a  sabre  cut  on  his  shoulder;  such  a  small  matter,  that  he  was 
scarcely  thanked  for  it. 

Neither  the  Baron  nor  his  guests  uttered  a  curse  or  a  word 
of  abuse  of  the  conquerors.  This  taciturnity  is  a  character- 
istically Breton  trait.  In  forty  years  no  one  had  ever  heard  a 
contemptuous  speech  from  the  Baron  as  to  his  adversaries. 


BEATRIX.  23 

They  could  but  do  their  business,  as  he  did  his  duty.     Such 
stern  silence  is  an  indication  of  immutable  determination. 

This  last  struggle,  "the  flicker  of  exhausted  powers,  had 
resulted  in  the  weakness  under  which  the  Baron  was  now 
failing.  The  second  exile  of  the  Bourbons,  as  miraculously 
ousted  as  they  had  been  miraculously  restored,  plunged  him 
in  bitter  melancholy. 

At  about  six  in  the  evening,  on  the  day  when  the  scene 
opens,  the  Baron,  who,  according  to  old  custom,  had  done 
his  dinner  by  four  o'clock,  had  gone  to  sleep  while  listening 
to  the  reading  of  the  "  Quotidienne."  His  head  rested 
against  the  back  of  his  armchair  by  the  fireside,  at  the  garden 
end. 

The  Baroness,  sitting  on  one  of  the  old  chairs  in  front  of 
the  fire,  by  the  side  of  this  gnarled  trunk  of  an  ancient  tree, 
was  of  the  type  of  those  adorable  women  which  exist  nowhere 
but  in  England,  Scotland,  or  Ireland.  There  only  do  we 
find  girls  kneaded  with  milk,  golden-haired,  with  curls  twined 
by  angels'  fingers,  for  the  light  of  heaven  seems  to  ripple  over 
their  tendrils  with  every  air  that  fans  them.  Fanny  O'Brien 
was  one  of  those  sylphs,  strong  in  tenderness,  invincible  in 
misfortune,  as  sweet  as  the  music  of  her  voice,  as  pure  as  the 
blue  of  her  eyes,  elegantly  lovely  and  refined,  with  the  pretti- 
ness  and  the  exquisite  flesh — satin  to  the  touch  and  a  joy  to 
the  eye — that  neither  pencil  nor  pen  can  do  justice  to.  Beau- 
tiful still  at  forty-two,  many  a  man  would  have  been  happy  to 
marry  her  as  he  looked  at  the  charms  of  this  glorious,  richly 
toned  autumn,  full  of  flower  and  fruit,  and  renewed  by  dews 
from  heaven.  The  Baroness  held  the  newspaper  in  a  hand 
soft  with  dimples,  and  turned-up  finger-tips  with  squarely  cut 
nails  like  those  of  an  antique  statue.  She  leaned  back  in  her 
chair,  without  awkwardness  or  affectation,  her  feet  thrust  for- 
ward to  get  warm  ;  and  she  wore  a  black  velvet  dress,  for  the 
wind  had  turned  cold  these  last  few  days.    The  bodice,  fitting 


24  BEATRIX. 

tight  to  the  throat,  covered  shoulders  of  noble  outline  and  a 
bosom  which  had  suffered  no  disfigurement  from  having 
nursed  an  only  child.  Her  hair  fell  in  ringlets  on  each  side 
of  her  face,  close  to  her  cheeks,  in  the  English  fashion  ;  a 
simple  twist  on  the  top  of  her  head  was  held  by  a  tortoise- 
shell  comb;  and  the  mass,  instead  of  being  of  a  doubtful  hue, 
glittered  in  the  light  like  threads  of  brownish  gold.  She  had 
made  a  plait  of  the  loose  short  hairs  that  grow  low  down  and 
are  a  mark  of  fine  breeding.  This  tiny  tress,  lost  in  the  rest 
of  her  hair  that  was  combed  high  on  her  head,  allowed  the 
eye  to  note  with  pleasure  the  flowing  line  from  her  neck  to 
her  beautiful  shoulders.  This  little  detail  shows  the  care  she 
always  gave  to  her  toilet.  She  persisted  in  charming  the  old 
man's  eye.     What  a  delightful  and  touching  attention  ! 

When  you  see  a  woman  lavishing  in  her  home-life  the  care 
for  appearance  which  other  women  find  for  one  feeling  only, 
you  may  be  sure  that  she  is  a  noble  mother,  as  she  is  a  noble 
wife,  the  joy  and  flower  of  the  household ;  she  understands 
her  duties  as  a  woman,  the  elegance  of  her  appearance  dwells 
in  her  soul  and  her  affections,  she  does  good  in  secret,  she 
knows  how  to  love  truly  without  ulterior  motives,  she  loves  her 
neighbor  as  she  loves  God,  for  himself.  And  it  really  seemed 
as  though  the  Virgin  in  paradise,  under  whose  protection  she 
lived,  had  rewarded  her  chaste  girlhood  and  saintly  woman- 
hood by  the  side  of  the  noble  old  man  by  throwing  over  her 
a  sort  of  glory  that  preserved  her  from  the  ravages  of  time. 

Plato  would  perhaps  have  honored  the  fading  of  her  beauty 
as  so  much  added  grace.  Her  skin,  once  so  white,  had  ac- 
quired those  warm  and  pearly  tones  that  painters  delight  in. 
Her  forehead,  broad  and  finely  moulded,  seemed  to  love  the 
light  that  played  on  it  with  sheeny  touches.  Her  eyes  of 
turquoise-blue  gleamed  with  wonderful  softness  under  light 
velvety  lashes.  The  drooping  lids  and  pathetic  temples  sug- 
gested some  unspeakable,  silent  melancholy ;  below  the  eyes 
her  cheeks  were  dead  white,  faintly  veined  with  blue  to  the 


BE  A  TRIX.  25 

bridge  of  the  nose.  The  nose,  aquiline  and  thin,  had  a  touch 
of  royal  dignity,  a  reminder  of  her  noble  birth.  Her  lips, 
pure  and  delicately  cut,  were  graced  by  a  smile,  the  natural 
outcome  of  inexhaustible  good  humor.  Her  teeth  were  small 
and  white.  She  had  grown  a  little  stout,  but  her  shapely 
hips  and  slender  waist  were  not  disfigured  by  it ;  the  autumn 
of  her  beauty  displayed  still  some  bright  flowers  forgotten  by 
spring  and  the  warmer  glories  of  summer.  Her  finely  moulded 
arms,  her  smooth  lustrous  skin  had  gained  a  finer  texture; 
the  forms  had  filled  out.  And  her  open,  serene  countenance, 
with  its  faint  color,  the  purity  of  her  blue  eyes,  to  which  too 
rude  a  gaze  would  have  been  an  offense,  expressed  unchanging 
gentleness,  the  infinite  tenderness  of  the  angels. 

At  the  other  side  of  the  fireplace,  in  another  armchair,  sat 
the  old  sister  of  eighty,  in  every  particular  but  dress  the 
exact  image  of  her  brother  ;  she  listened  to  the  paper  while 
knitting  stockings,  for  which  sight  is  not  needed.  Her  eyes 
were  darkened  by  cataract,  and  she  obstinately  refused  to  be 
operated  on,  in  spite  of  her  sister-in-law's  entreaties.  She 
alone  knew  the  secret  motive  of  her  determination;  she  as- 
cribed it  to  lack  of  courage,  but  in  fact  she  did  not  choose 
that  twenty-five  louis  should  be  spent  on  her  ;  there  would 
have  been  so  much  less  in  the  house.  Nevertheless,  she  would 
have  liked  to  see  her  brother  again.  These  two  old  people 
were  an  admirable  foil  to  the  Baroness'  beauty.  What  woman 
would  not  have  seemed  young  and  handsome  between  Mon- 
sieur du  Guenic  and  his  sister? 

Mademoiselle  Zephirine,  deprived  of  sight,  knew  nothing 
of  the  changes  that  her  eighty  years  had  wrought  in  her 
looks.  Her  pallid,  hollow  face,  to  which  the  fixity  of  her 
white  and  sightless  eyes  gave  a  look  of  death,  while  three  or 
four  projecting  teeth  added  an  almost  threatening  expression  ; 
in  which  the  deep  eye-sockets  were  circled  with  red  lines,  and 
a  few  manly  hairs,  long  since  white,  were  visible  on  the  chin 
and  lips — this  cold,  calm  face  was  framed  in  a  little  brown 


26  BEATRIX. 

cotton  hood  quilted  like  a  counterpane,  edged  with  a  cambric 
frill,  and  tied  under  her  chin  with  ribbons  that  were  never 
fresh.  She  wore  a  short  upper  skirt  of  stout  cloth  over  a 
quilted  petticoat,  a  perfect  mattress,  within  which  lurked 
double  louis  d'or;  and  she  had  pockets  sewn  to  a  waistband, 
which  she  took  off  at  night  and  put  on  in  the  morning  as  a 
garment.  Her  figure  was  wrapped  in  the  usual  jacket  bodice 
of  Breton  women,  made  of  cloth  like  the  skirt,  and  finished 
with  a  close  pleated  frill,  of  which  the  washing  formed  the 
only  subject  of  difference  between  her  and  the  Baroness ;  she 
insisted  on  changing  it  but  once  a  week.  Out  of  the  wadded 
sleeves  of  this  jacket  came  a  pair  of  withered  but  sinewy  arms, 
and  two  ever-busy  hands,  somewhat  red,  which  made  her  arms 
look  as  white  as  poplar  wood.  These  fingers,  claw-like  from 
the  contraction  induced  by  the  habit  of  knitting,  were  like  a 
stocking-machine  in  constant  motion  ;  the  wonder  would  have 
been  to  see  them  at  rest.  Now  and  then  Mademoiselle  du 
Guenic  would  take  one  of  the  long  knitting-needles  darned 
into  the  bosom  of  her  dress,  and  push  it  in  under  her  hood 
among  her  white  hairs.  A  stranger  would  have  laughed  to 
see  how  calmly  she  stuck  it  in  again,  without  any  fear  of 
pricking  herself.  She  was  as  upright  as  a  steeple ;  her  colum- 
nar rigidity  might  be  regarded  as  one  of  those  old  women's 
vanities  which  prove  that  pride  is  a  passion  indispensable 
to  vitality.  She  had  a  bright  smile  ;  she,  too,  had  done  her 
duty. 

As  soon  as  Fanny  saw  that  the  Baron  was  asleep,  she  ceased 
reading.  A  sunbeam  shot  across  from  window  to  window, 
cutting  the  atmosphere  of  the  old  room  in  two  by  a  band  of 
gold,  and  casting  a  glory  on  the  almost  blackened  furniture. 
The  light  caught  the  carvings  of  the  cornice,  fluttered  over  the 
cabinets,  spread  a  shining  face  over  the  oak  table,  and  gave 
cheerfulness  to  this  softly  sombre  room,  just  as  Fanny's  voice 
brought  to  the  old  woman's  spirit  a  harmony  as  luminous  and 
gay  as  the  sunbeam.     Ere  long  the  rays  of  the  sun  assumed  a 


Beatrix.  21 

reddish  glow,  which  by  insensible  degrees  sank  to  the  melan- 
choly hues  of  dusk.  The  Baroness  fell  into  serious  thought, 
one  of  those  spells  of  perfect  silence  which  her  old  sister-in- 
law  had  noticed  during  a  fortnight  past,  trying  to  account  for 
them  without  questioning  the  Baroness  in  any  way ;  but  she 
was  studying  the  causes  of  this  absence  of  mind  as  only  blind 
people  can,  who  read  as  it  were  a  black  book  with  white 
letters,  while  every  sound  rings  through  their  soul  as  though 
it  were  an  oracular  echo.  The  old  blind  woman,  to  whom 
the  falling  darkness  now  meant  nothing,  went  on  knitting, 
and  the  silence  was  so  complete  that  the  tick  of  her  steel 
knitting-needles  could  be  heard. 

"You  have  dropped  the  paper — but  you  are  not  asleep, 
sister,"  said  the  old  woman  sagaciously. 

It  was  now  dark ;  Mariotte  came  in  to  light  the  lamp  and 
placed  it  on  a  square  table  in  front  of  the  fire  ;  then  she 
fetched  her  distaff,  her  hank  of  flax,  and  a  little  stool,  and  sat 
down  to  spin  in  the  window  recess  on  the  side  toward  the 
courtyard,  as  she  did  every  evening.  Gasselin  was  still  busy 
in  the  outbuildings,  attending  to  the  Baron's  horse  and  that 
of  Calyste,  seeing  that  all  was  right  in  the  stables,  and  giving 
the  two  fine  hounds  their  evening  meal.  The  glad  barking 
of  these  two  creatures  was  the  last  sound  that  roused  the 
echoes  lurking  in  the  dark  walls  of  the  house. 

These  two  horses  and  two  dogs  were  the  last  remains  of  the 
splendor  of  chivalry.  An  imaginative  man,  sitting  on  the 
outer  steps,  and  abandoning  himself  to  the  poetry  of  the 
images  still  living  in  this  dwelling,  might  have  been  startled 
at  hearing  the  dogs  and  the  tramping  hoofs  of  the  neighing 
steeds. 

Gasselin  was  one  of  the  short,  sturdy,  square-built  Breton 
race,  with  black  hair  and  tanned  faces,  silent,  slow,  as  stub- 
born as  mules,  but  always  going  on  the  road  marked  out  for 
them.  He  was  now  forty-two,  and  had  lived  in  the  house 
twenty-five   years.     Mademoiselle   had   engaged    Gasselin  as 


28  BEATRIX. 

servant  when  he  was  fifteen,  on  hearing  of  the  Baron's  mar- 
riage and  probable  return.  This  henchman  considered  him- 
self a  member  of  the  family.  He  had  played  with  Calyste,  he 
loved  the  horses  and  dogs,  and  talked  to  them  and  petted 
them  as  though  they  were  his  own.  He  wore  a  short  jacket 
of  blue  linen  with  little  pockets  that  flapped  over  his  hips,  and 
a  vest  and  trousers  of  the  same  material,  in  all  seasons  alike, 
blue  stockings  and  hobnailed  shoes.  When  the  weather  was 
very  cold  or  wet  he  added  the  goatskin  with  the  hair  on  worn 
in  his  province. 

Mariotte,  who  was  also  past  forty,  was  as  a  woman  exactly 
what  Gasselin  was  as  a  man.  Never  did  a  better  pair  run  in 
harness  ;  the  same  color,  the  same  figure,  the  same  small, 
sharp  black  eyes.  It  was  hard  to  imagine  why  Mariotte  and 
Gasselin  had  never  married  ;  but  it  might  have  been  criminal ; 
they  almost  seemed  like  brother  'and  sister.  Mariotte  had 
thirty  crowns  a  year  in  wages  and  Gasselin  a  hundred  livres; 
but  not  for  a  thousand  francs  a  year  would  they  have  quitted 
the  house  of  the  Guenics.  They  were  both  under  the  juris- 
diction of  old  mademoiselle,  who  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
managing  the  house  from  the  time  of  the  war  in  la  Vendee 
till  her  brother's  return.  Hence  she  had  been  greatly  upset 
on  hearing  that  her  brother  was  bringing  home  a  mistress  of 
the  house,  supposing  that  she  would  have  to  lay  down  the 
domestic  sceptre  in  favor  of  the  Baronne  du  Guenic,  whose 
first  subject  she  would  then  be. 

Mademoiselle  Zephirine  had  been  very  agreeably  surprised 
on  finding  that  Miss  Fanny  O'Brien  was  born  to  a  lofty  posi- 
tion, a  girl  who  detested  the  minute  cares  of  housekeeping, 
and  who,  like  all  noble  souls,  would  have  preferred  dry  bread 
from  the  bakers  to  any  food  she  had  to  prepare  herself;  capa- 
ble of  fulfilling  all  the  duties  of  motherhood,  strong  to  endure 
every  necessary  privation,  but  without  energy  for  common- 
place industry.  When  the  Baron,  in  the  name  of  his  shrinking 
wife,  begged  his  sister  to  rule  the  house,  the  old  maid  em- 


BE  A  TRIX.  2d 

braced  the  Baroness  as  her  sister  ;  she  made  a  daughter  of 
her,  she  adored  her,  happy  in  being  allowed  to  continue  her 
care  of  governing  the  house,  and  keeping  it  with  incredible 
rigor  and  most  economical  habits,,  which  she  relaxed  only  on 
great  occasions,  such  as  her  sister-in-law's  confinement  and 
feeding,  and  everything  that  could  affect  Calyste,  the  wor- 
shiped son  of  the  house. 

Though  the  two  servants  were  accustomed  to  this  strict 
rule,  and  needed  no  telling ;  though  they  took  more  care  of 
their  master's  interests  than  of  their  own,  still  Mademoiselle 
Zephirine  had  an  eye  on  everything.  Her  attention  having 
nothing  to  divert  it,  she  was  the  woman  to  know  without  going 
to  look  how  large  the  pile  of  walnuts  should  be  in  the  loft, 
and  how  much  corn  was  left  in  the  stable-bin  without  plunging 
her  sinewy  arm  into  its  depths.  She  wore  a  boatswain's 
whistle  attached  by  a  string  to  her  waistband,  and  called 
Mariotte  by  whistling  once  and  Gasselin  by  whistling  twice. 
Gasselin's  chief  happiness  consisted  in  cultivating  the  garden 
and  raising  fine  fruit  and  good  vegetables.  He  had  so  little 
to  do  that  but  for  his  gardening  he  would  have  been  bored  to 
death.  When  he  had  groomed  the  horses  in  the  morning  he 
polished  the  floors  and  cleaned  the  two  first-floor  rooms ;  he 
had  little  to  do  for  his  masters.  So  in  the  garden  you  could 
not  have  found  a  weed  or  a  noxious  insect.  Sometimes  Gas- 
selin might  be  seen  standing  motionless  and  bareheaded  in 
the  sunshine,  watching  for  a  field-rat  or  the  dreadful  larvae  of 
the  cockchafer  ;  then  he  would  rush  in  with  a  child's  glee  to 
show  the  master  the  creature  he  had  spent  a  week  in  catching. 
On  fast  days  it  was  his  delight  to  go  to  le  Croisic  to  buy  fish, 
cheaper  there  than  at  Guerande. 

Never  was  there  a  family  more  united,  on  better  terms, 
or  more  inseparable,  than  this  pious  and  noble  household. 
Masters  and  servants  seemed  to  have  been  made  for  each 
other.  In  five-and-twenty  years  there  had  never  been  a  trouble 
or  a  discord.     The  only  sorrows  they  had  known  were  the 


30  &EATMX. 

child's  little  ailments,  and  the  only  anxieties  had  come  of  the 
events  of  1814,  and  again  of  1830.  If  the  same  things  were 
invariably  done  at  the  same  hours,  if  the  food  varied  only 
with  the  changes  of  the  seasons,  this  monotony,  like  that  of 
nature,  with  its  alternation  of  cloud,  rain,  and  sunshine,  was 
made  endurable  by  the  affection  that  filled  every  heart,  and 
was  all  the  more  helpful  and  beneficent  because  it  was  the 
outcome  of  natural  laws. 

When  twilight  was  ended,  Gasselin  came  into  the  room 
and  respectfully  inquired  whether  he  were  wanted. 

"After  prayers  you  can  go  out  or  go  to  bed,"  said  the 
Baron,  rousing  himself,  "unless  madame  or  my  sister " 

The  two  ladies  nodded  agreement.  Gasselin,  seeing  them 
all  rise  to  kneel  on  their  chairs,  fell  on  his  knees.  Mariotte 
knelt  on  her  stool.  Old  Mademoiselle  du  Guenic  said  prayers 
aloud. 

As  she  finished,  a  knock  was  heard  at  the  outer  gate.  Gas- 
selin went  to  open  it. 

"It  is  Monsieur  le  Cure,  no  doubt;  he  is  almost  always 
the  first,"  remarked  Mariotte. 

And,  in  fact,  they  all  recognized  the  footstep  of  the  parish 
priest  on  the  resonant  steps  to  the  balcony  entrance.  The 
cure  bowed  respectfully  to  the  three,  addressing  the  Baron 
and  the  two  ladies  with  the  unctuous  civility  that  a  priest  has 
at  his  command.  In  reply  to  an  absent-minded  "  Good-even- 
ing "  from  the  mistress  of  the  house,  he  gave  her  a  look  of 
priestly  scrutiny. 

"  Are  you  uneasy,  madame,  or  unwell?  "  he  asked. 

"  Thank  you,  no  !  "  said  she. 

Monsieur  Grimont,  a  man  of  about  fifty,  of  middle  height, 
wrapped  in  his  gown,  beneath  which  a  pair  of  thick  shoes 
with  silver  buckles  were  visible,  showed  above  his  bands  a  fat 
face,  on  the  whole  fair,  but  sallow.  His  hands  were  plump. 
His  abbot-like  countenance  had  something  of  the  Dutch 
burgomaster  in  its  calm  complexion  and  the  tones  of  the  flesh, 


BE  A  TRIX.  31 

and  something,  too,  of  the  Breton  peasant  in  its  straight  black 
hair  and  sparkling  black  eyes,  which  nevertheless  were  under 
the  control  of  priestly  decorum.  His  cheerfulness,  like  that 
of  all  people  whose  conscience  is  calm  and  pure,  consented  to 
jest.  There  was  nothing  anxious  or  forbidding  in  his  look, 
as  in  that  of  those  unhappy  priests  whose  maintenance  or 
power  is  disputed  by  their  parishioners,  and  who  instead  of 
being,  as  Napoleon  so  grandly  said,  the  moral  leaders  of  the 
people  and  natural  justices  of  the  peace,  are  regarded  as  ene- 
mies. The  most  unbelieving  of  strangers  who  should  see 
Monsieur  Grimont  walking  through  Guerande  would  have 
recognized  him  as  the  sovereign  of  the  Catholic  town  ;  but 
this  sovereign  abdicated  his  spiritual  rule  before  the  feudal 
supremacy  of  the  du  Guenic  family.  In  this  drawing-room 
he  was  as  a  chaplain  in  the  hall  of  his  liege.  In  church,  as 
he  gave  the  blessing,  his  hand  always  turned  first  toward  the 
chapel  of  the  house,  where  their  hand  and  sword  and  their 
motto  were  carved  on  the  keystone  of  the  vaulting. 

"J  thought  that  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  was  here,"  said 
the  cure,  seating  himself,  as  he  kissed  the  Baroness'  hand. 
"  She  is  losing  her  good  habits.  Is  the  fashion  for  dissipation 
spreading?  For  I  observe  that  Monsieur  le  Chevalier  is  at 
Ies  Touches  again  this  evening." 

"  Say  nothing  of  his  visits  there  before  Mademoiselle  de 
Pen-Hoel,"  exclaimed  the  old  lady  in  an  undertone. 

"Ah!  mademoiselle,"  Mariotte  put  in,  "how  can  you 
keep  the  whole  town  from  talking?" 

"And  what  do  they  say  ?  "  asked  the  Baroness. 

"All  the  girls  and  the  old  gossips — everybody,  in  short — 
is  saying  that  he  is  in  love  with  Mademoiselle  des  Touches." 

"A  young  fellow  so  handsome  as  Calyste  is  only  following 
his  calling  by  making  himself  loved,"  said  the  Baron. 

"Here  is  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel,"  said  Mariotte. 

The  gravel  in  the  courtyard  was,  in  fact,  heard  to  crunch 
under  this  lady's  deliberate  steps,  heralded  by  a  lad  bearing  a 


32  BEATRIX. 

lantern.  On  seeing  this  retainer,  Mariotte  transferred  her 
stool  and  distaff  to  the  large  hall,  where  she  could  chat  with 
him  by  the  light  of  the  rosin  candle  that  burned  at  the  cost 
of  the  rich  and  stingy  old  maid,  thus  saving  her  master's. 

Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  was  a  slight,  thin  woman,  as 
yellow  as  the  parchment  of  an  archive,  and  wrinkled  like  a 
lake  swept  by  the  wind,  with  gray  eyes,  large  prominent  teeth, 
and  hands  like  a  man's ;  she  was  short,  certainly  crooked, 
and  perhaps  even  hump-backed  ;  but  no  one  had  ever  been 
curious  to  study  her  perfections  or  imperfections.  Dressed  in 
the  same  style  as  Mademoiselle  du  Guenic,  she  made  quite  a 
commotion  in  a  huge  mass  of  petticoats  and  frills  when  she 
tried  to  find  one  of  the  two  openings  in  her  gown  by  which 
she  got  at  her  pockets  ;  the  strangest  clinking  of  keys  and 
money  was  then  heard  from  beneath  these  skirts.  All  the 
iron  paraphernalia  of  a  good  housewife  was  to  be  found  on 
one  side,  and  on  the  other  her  silver  snuff-box,  her  thimble, 
her  knitting,  and  other  jangling  objects. 

Instead  of  the  quilted  hood  worn  by  Mademoiselle  du 
Guenic,  she  had  a  green  bonnet,  which  she  no  doubt  wore 
when  she  went  to  look  at  her  melons;  like  them,  it  has  faded 
from  green  to  yellow,  and  as  for  its  shape,  fashion  has  lately 
revived  it  in  Paris  under  the  name  of  Bibi.  This  bonnet  was 
made  under  her  own  eye  by  her  nieces,  of  green  sarsnet  pur- 
chased at  Guerande,  on  a  shape  she  bought  new  every  five. 
years  at  Nantes — for  she  allowed  it  the  life  of  an  administra- 
tion. Her  nieces  also  made  her  gowns,  cut  by  an  immemorial 
pattern.  The  old  maid  still  used  the  crutch-handled  cane 
which  ladies  carried  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Marie- 
Antoinette.  She  was  of  the  first  nobility  of  Brittany.  On 
her  shield  figured  the  ermines  of  the  ancient  duchy ;  the  illus- 
trious Breton  house  of  Pen-Hoel  ended  in  her  and  her 
sister. 

This  younger  sister  had   married  a   Kergarouet,   who,   in 
spite  of  the  disapprobation  of  the  neighbors,  had  added  the 


BE  A  TRIX.  38 

name  of  Pen-Hoel  to  his  own,  and  called  himself  the  Vi- 
comte  de  Kergarouet-Pen-Hoel. 

"  Heaven  has  punished  him,"  the  old  maid  would  say. 
"  He  has  only  daughters,  and  the  name  of  Kergarouet-Pen- 
Hoel  will  become  extinct." 

Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  enjoyed  an  income  of  about 
seven  thousand  francs  from  land.  For  thirty-six  years,  since 
she  had  come  of  age,  she  herself  had  managed  her  estates  ; 
she  rode  out  to  inspect  them,  and  on  every  point  displayed 
the  firmness  of  will  characteristic  of  deformed  persons.  Her 
avarice  was  the  amazement  of  all  for  ten  leagues  around,  but 
viewed  with  no  disapprobation.  She  kept  one  woman  ser- 
vant and  this  lad  ;  all  her  expenditure,  not  inclusive  of  taxes, 
did  not  come  to  more  than  a  thousand  francs  a  year.  Hence 
she  was  the  object  of  the  most  flattering  attentions  from  the 
Kergarouet-Pen-Hoels,  who  spent  the  winter  at  Nantes  and 
the  summer  at  their  country-house  on  the  banks  of  the  Loire 
just  below  Indret.  It  was  known  that  she  intended  to  leave 
her  fortune  and  her  savings  to  that  one  of  her  nieces  whom 
she  might  prefer.  Every  three  months  one  of  the  four 
Demoiselles  de  Kergarouet  came  to  spend  a  few  days  with 
her. 

Jacqueline  de  Pen-Hoel,  a  great  friend  of  Zephirine  de 
Guenic's,  and  brought  up  in  the  faith  and  fear  of  the  Breton 
dignity  of  the  Guenics,  had  conceived  a  plan,  since  Calyste's 
birth,  of  securing  her  wealth  to  this  youth  by  getting  him  to 
marry  one  of  these  nieces,  to  be  bestowed  on  him  by  the 
Vicomtesse  de  Kergarouet-Pen-Hoel.  She  proposed  to  re- 
purchase some  of  the  best  land  for  the  Guenics  by  paying  off 
the  farmers'  loans.  When  avarice  has  an  end  in  view  it 
ceases  to  be  a  vice ;  it  is  the  instrument  of  virtue  ;  its  stern 
privations  become  a  constant  sacrifice  ;  in  short,  it  has  great- 
ness of  purpose  concealed  beneath  its  meanness.  Zephirine 
was  perhaps  in  Jacqueline's  secret.  Perhaps,  too,  the  Bar- 
oness, whose  whole  intelligence  was  absorbed  in  love  for  her 
3 


34  BE  A  TRIX. 

son  and  tender  care  for  his  father,  may  have  guessed  some- 
thing when  she  saw  with  what  pertinacious  perseverance 
Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  would  bring  with  her,  day  after 
day,  Charlotte  de  Kergarouet,  her  favorite  niece,  now  fifteen. 
The  priest,  Monsieur  Grimont,  was  undoubtedly  in  her  con- 
fidence ;  he  helped  the  old  lady  to  invest  her  money  well. 
But  if  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  had  had  three  hundred 
thousand  francs  in  gold — the  sum  at  which  her  savings  were 
commonly  estimated  ;  if  she  had  had  ten  times  more  land 
than  she  owned,  the  du  Guenics  would  never  have  allowed 
themselves  to  pay  her  such  attention  as  might  lead  the  old 
maid  to  fancy  that  they  were  thinking  of  her  fortune.  With 
an  admirable  instinct  of  truly  Breton  pride,  Jacqueline  de 
Pen-Hoel,  gladly  accepting  the  supremacy  assumed  by  her  old 
friends  Zephirine  and  the  du  Guenics,  always  expressed  her- 
self honored  by  a  visit  when  the  descendant  of  Irish  kings 
and  Zephirine  condescended  to  call  on  her.  She  went  so  far 
as  to  conceal  with  care  the  little  extravagance  which  she 
winked  at  every  evening  by  permitting  her  boy  to  burn  an 
oribus  at  the  du  Guenics' — the  gingerbread-colored  candle 
which  is  commonly  used  in  various  districts  in  the  West. 
This  rich  old  maid  was  indeed  aristocracy,  pride,  and  dignity 
personified. 

At  the  moment  when  the  reader  is  studying  her  portrait,  an 
indiscretion  on  the  part  of  the  cure  had  betrayed  the  fact 
that,  on  the  evening  when  the  old  Baron,  the  young  cheva- 
lier, and  Gasselin  stole  away  armed  with  swords  and  fowling- 
pieces  to  join  Madame  in  la  Vendee — to  Fanny's  extreme 
terror  and  to  the  great  joy  of  the  Bretons — Mademoiselle  de 
Pen-Hoel  had  placed  in  the  Baron's  hands  a  sum  of  ten  thou- 
sand francs  in  gold,  an  immense  sacrifice,  supplemented  by 
ten  thousand  francs  more,  the  fruits  of  a  tithe  collected  by 
the  cure,  which  the  old  partisan  was  requested  to  lay  at  the 
feet  of  Henri  V.'s  mother,  in  the  name  of  the  Pen-Hoels  and 
of  the  parish  of  Gu6rande, 


BEATRIX.  35 

Meanwhile  she  treated  Calyste  with  the  airs  of  a  woman 
who  believes  she  is  in  her  rights ;  her  schemes  justified  her  in 
keeping  an  eye  on  him  ;  not  that  she  was  strait-laced  in  her 
ideas  as  to  questions  of  gallantry — she  had  all  the  indulgence 
of  a  woman  of  the  old  regime ;  but  she  had  a  horror  of  Rev- 
olutionary manners.  Calyste,  who  might  have  risen  in  her 
esteem  by  intrigues  with  Breton  women,  would  have  fallen 
immensely  if  he  had  taken  up  what  she  called  the  new-fangled 
ways.  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel,  who  would  have  unearthed 
a  sum  of  money  to  pay  off  a  girl  he  had  seduced,  would  have 
regarded  Calyste  as  a  reckless  spendthrift  if  she  had  seen  him 
driving  a  tilbury,  or  heard  him  talk  of  setting  out  for  Paris. 
And  if  she  had  found  him  reading  some  impious  review  or 
newspaper,  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  what  she  might  have 
done.  To  her,  new  notions  meant  the  rotation  of  crops, 
sheer  ruin  under  the  guise  of  improvements  and  methods, 
lands  ultimately  mortgaged  as  a  result  of  experiments.  To 
her,  thrift  was  the  real  way  to  make  a  fortune ;  good  manage- 
ment consisted  in  filling  her  outhouses  with  buckwheat,  rye, 
and  hemp ;  at  waiting  for  prices  to  rise  at  the  risk  of  being 
known  to  force  the  market,  and  in  resolutely  hoarding  her 
corn-sacks.  As  it  happened,  strangely  enough,  she  had  often 
met  with  good  bargains  that  confirmed  her  in  her  principles. 
She  was  thought  cunning,  but  she  was  not  really  clever;  she 
had  only  the  methodical  habits  of  a  Dutchwoman,  the  caution 
of  a  cat,  the  pertinacity  of  a  priest ;  and  this,  in  a  land  of 
routine,  was  as  good  as  the  deepest  perspicacity. 

"Shall  we  see  Monsieur  du  Halga  this  evening?"  asked 
Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel,  taking  off  her  knitted  worsted 
mittens  after  exchanging  the  usual  civilities. 

"  Yes,  mademoiselle,  I  saw  him  airing  his  dog  in  the  mall," 
replied  the  cure. 

"Then  our  mouche  will  be  lively  this  evening,"  said  she. 
"We  were  but  four  last  night." 

On  hearing  the  word  mouche,  the  priest  rose  and  brought 


36  BEATRIX. 

out  of  a  drawer  of  one  of  the  cabinets  a  small  round  basket 
of  fine  willow,  some  ivory  counters  as  yellow  as  Turkish 
tobacco,  from  twenty  years'  service,  and  a  pack  of  cards  as 
greasy  as  those  of  the  custom-house  officers  of  Saint-Nazaire, 
who  only  have  a  new  pack  once  a  fortnight.  The  abbe  him- 
self sorted  out  the  proper  number  of  counters  for  each  player, 
and  put  the  basket  by  the  lamp  in  the  middle  of  the  table, 
with  childish  eagerness  and  the  manner  of  a  man  accustomed 
to  fulfill  this  little  task.  A  loud  rap  in  military  style  presently 
echoed  through  the  silent  depths  of  the  old  house.  Made- 
moiselle de  Pen-HoeTs  little  servant  went  solemnly  to  open 
the  gate.  Before  long  the  tall,  lean  figure  of  the  Chevalier 
du  Halga,  formerly  flag-captain  under  Admiral  de  Kergarouet, 
was  seen,  carefully  dressed  to  suit  the  season,  a  black  object 
in  the  dusk  that  still  prevailed  outside. 

"Come  in,  chevalier,"  cried  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel. 
"  The  altar  is  prepared  !  "  said  the  priest. 
Du  Halga,  whose  health  was  poor,  wore  flannel  for  the 
rheumatism,  a  black  silk  cap  to  protect  his  head  against  the 
fog,  and  a  spencer  to  guard  his  precious  chest  from  the  sud- 
den blasts  of  wind  that  refresh  the  atmosphere  of  Guerande. 
He  always  went  about  armed  with  a  rattan  to  drive  off  dogs 
when  they  tried  to  make  inopportune  love  to  his  own,  which  was 
a  lady.  This  man,  as  minutely  particular  as  any  fine  lady,  put 
out  by  the  smallest  obstacles,  speaking  low  to  spare  the  voice 
remaining  to  him,  had  been  in  his  day  one  of  the  bravest  and 
most  capable  officers  of  the  King's  navy.  He  had  been  hon- 
ored with  the  confidence  of  the  Bailli  de  Suffren  and  the 
Comte  de  Portenduere's  friendship.  His  valor,  as  captain  of 
Admiral  de  Kergarouet's  flag-ship,  was  scored  in  legible  char- 
acters on  his  face,  seamed  with  scars.  No  one,  on  looking  at 
him,  could  have  recognized  the  voice  that  had  roared  down 
the  storm,  the  eye  that  had  swept  the  horizon,  the  indomitable 
courage  of  a  Breton  seaman.  He  did  not  smoke,  he  never 
swore ;  he  was  as  gentle  and  quiet  as  a  girl,  and  devoted  him- 


BE  A  TRTX.  37 

self  to  his  dog  Thisbe  and  her  various  little  whims  with  the 
absorption  of  an  old  woman.  He  gave  every  one  a  high 
idea  of  his  departed  gallantry.  He  never  spoke  of  the  startling 
acts  which  had  amazed  the  Comte  d'Estaing. 

Though  he  stooped  like  a  pensioner  and  walked  as  though 
he  feared  to  tread  on  eggs  at  every  step,  though  he  complained 
of  a  cool  breeze,  of  a  scorching  sun,  of  a  damp  fog,  he  dis- 
played fine  white  teeth  set  in  red  gums,  which  were  reassuring 
as  to  his  health  ;  and,  indeed,  his  complaint  must  have  been 
an  expensive  one,  for  it  consisted  in  eating  four  meals  a  day 
of  monastic  abundance.  His  frame,  like  the  Baron's,  was 
large-boned  and  indestructibly  strong,  covered  with  parch- 
ment stretched  tightly  over  the  bones,  like  the  coat  of  an  Arab 
horse  that  shines  in  the  sun  over  its  sinews.  His  complexion 
had  preserved  the  tanned  hue  it  had  acquired  in  his  voyages 
to  India,  but  he  had  brought  back  no  ideas  and  no  reminis- 
cences. He  had  emigrated  ;  he  had  lost  all  his  fortune ;  then 
he  had  recovered  the  cross  of  Saint-Louis  and  a  pension  of 
two  thousand  francs,  legitimately  earned  by  his  services,  and 
paid  out  of  the  fund  for  naval  pensions.  The  harmless  hypo- 
chondria that  led  him  to  invent  a  thousand  imaginary  ailments 
was  easily  accounted,  for  by  his  sufferings  during  the  emigra- 
tion. He  had  served  in  the  Russian  navy  till  the  day  when 
the  Emperor  Alexander  wanted  him  to  serve  against  France ; 
he  then  retired  and  went  to  live  at  Odessa,  near  the  Due  de 
Richelieu,  with  whom  he  came  home,  and  who  procured  the 
payment  of  the  pension  due  to  this  noble  wreck  of  the  old 
Breton  navy. 

At  the  death  of  Louis  XVIII.  he  came  home  to  Guerande 
and  was  chosen  mayor  of  the  town.  The  cure,  the  chevalier, 
and  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  had  been  for  fifteen  years  in 
the  habit  of  spending  their  evenings  at  the  Hotel  du  Guenic, 
whither  also  came  a  few  persons  of  good  family  from  the  town 
and  immediate  neighborhood.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  the 
Guenic  family  were  the  leaders  of  this  little  Faubourg  Saint- 


38  BE  A  TR1X. 

Germain  of  the  district,  into  which  no  official  was  admitted 
who  had  been  appointed  to  his  post  by  the  new  Government. 
For  six  years  past  the  cure  invariably  coughed  at  the  critical 
words  of  Domine,  salvumfac  regent.  Politics  always  stuck  at 
that  point  in  Guerande. 

Mouche  (a  sort  of  loo)  is  a  game  played  with  five  cards  in 
each  hand  and  a  turn-up.  The  turned-up  card  decides  the 
trumps.  At  every  fresh  deal  each  player  is  at  liberty  to  play 
or  to  retire.  If  he  throws  away  his  hand,  he  loses  only  his 
deposit ;  for  as  long  as  no  fines  have  been  paid  into  the  pool, 
each  player  must  contribute  to  it.  Those  who  play  must 
make  a  trick,  paid  for  in  proportion  to  the  contents  of  the 
pool ;  if  there  are  five  sous  in  the  trick,  he  pays  one  sou. 
The  player  who  fails  to  pay  is  looed ;  he  then  owes  as  much  as 
the  pool  contains,  which  increases  it  for  the  following  deal. 
The  fines  due  are  written  down ;  they  are  added  to  the  pools 
one  after  another  in  diminishing  order,  the  heaviest  before 
the  lesser  sums.  Those  who  decline  to  play  show  their  cards 
during  the  play,  but  they  count  for  nothing.  The  players 
may  discard  and  draw  from  the  pack,  as  at  ecarte,  in  order  of 
seniority.  Each  player  may  change  as  many  cards  as  he  likes, 
so  the  eldest  and  the  second  hands  may  use  up  the  pack  be- 
tween them.  The  turned-up  card  belongs  to  the  dealer,  who 
is  the  youngest  hand ;  he  has  a  right  to  exchange  it  for  any 
card  in  his  own  hand.  One  terrible  card  takes  all  others,  and 
is  known  as  mistigris;  mistigris  is  the  knave  of  clubs.  This 
game,  though  so  excessively  simple,  is  not  devoid  of  interest. 
The  covetousness  natural  to  man  finds  scope  in  it,  as  well  as 
some  diplomatic  finessing  and  play  of  expression. 

At  the  Hotel  du  Guenic  each  player  purchased  twenty 
counters  for  five  sous,  by  which  the  stake  amounted  to  five 
liards  each  deal,  an  important  sum  in  the  eyes  of  these  gam- 
blers. With  very  great  luck  a  player  might  win  fifty  sous, 
more  than  any  one  in  Guerande  spent  in  a  day.    And  Made- 


BEATRIX.  39 

moiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  came  to  this  game — of  which  the  sim- 
plicity is  unsurpassed  in  the  nomenclature  of  the  Academy, 
unless  by  that  of  Beggar  my  Neighbor — with  an  eagerness  as 
great  as  that  of  a  sportsman  at  a  great  hunting  party.  Made- 
moiselle Zephirine,  who  was  the  Baroness'  partner,  attached 
no  less  importance  to  the  game  of  mouche.  To  risk  a  liard*  for 
the  chance  of  winning  five,  deal  after  deal,  constituted  a 
serious  financial  speculation  to  the  thrifty  old  woman,  and  she 
threw  herself  into  it  with  as  much  moral  energy  as  the  greed- 
iest speculator  puts  into  gambling  on  the  Bourse  for  the  rise 
and  fall  of  shares. 

By  a  diplomatic  convention,  dating  from  September,  1825, 
after  a  certain  evening  when  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  had 
lost  thirty-seven  sous,  the  game  was  ended  as  soon  as  any  one 
expressed  a  wish  to  that  effect  after  losing  ten  sous.  Polite- 
ness would  not  allow  of  a  player  being  put  to  the  little  dis- 
comfort of  looking  on  at  the  game  without  taking  part  in  it. 
But  every  passion  has  its  Jesuitical  side.  The  Chevalier  du 
Halga  and  the  Baron,  two  old  politicians,  had  found  a  way  of 
evading  the  act.  When  all  the  players  were  equally  eager  to 
prolong  an  exciting  game,  the  brave  chevalier,  one  of  those 
bachelors  who  are  prodigal  and  rich  by  the  expenses  they 
save,  always  offered  to  lend  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  or 
Mademoiselle  Zephirine  ten  counters  when  either  of  them  had 
lost  her  five  sous,  on  the  understanding  that  she  should  repay 
them  if  she  should  win.  An  old  bachelor  might  allow  him- 
self such  an  act  of  gallantry  to  the  unmarried  ladies.  The 
Baron  also  would  offer  the  old  maids  ten  counters,  under  pre- 
tense of  not  stopping  the  game.  The  avaricious  old  women 
always  accepted,  not  without  some  pressing,  after  the  usage 
and  custom  of  old  maids.  But  to  allow  themselves  such  a 
piece  of  extravagance  the  Baron  and  the  chevalier  must  first 
have  won,  otherwise  the  offer  bore  the  character  of  an  affront. 

This  game  was  in  its  glory  when  a  young  Mademoiselle  de 
*  A  liard  was  the  fourth  of  a  sou? 


40  BEATRIX. 

Kergarouet  was  on  a  visit  to  her  aunt — Kergarouet  only,  for 
the  family  had  never  succeeded  in  getting  itself  called  Kerga- 
rouct-Pen-Hoel  by  anybody  here,  not  even  by  the  servants, 
who  had  indeed  peremptory  orders  on  this  point.  The  aunt 
spoke  of  the  mouche  parties  at  the  Guenics'  as  a  great  treat.  The 
girl  was  enjoined  to  make  herself  agreeable — an  easy  matter 
enough  when  she  saw  the  handsome  Calyste,  on  whom  the 
four  young  ladies  all  doted.  These  damsels,  brought  up  in 
the  midst  of  modern  civilization,  thought  little  of  five  sous, 
and  paid  fine  after  fine.  Then  fines  would  be  scored  up  to  a 
total  sometimes  of  five  francs,  on  a  scale  ranging  from  two 
sous  and  a  half  up  to  ten  sous.  These  were  evenings  of  intense 
excitement  to  the  old  blind  woman.  The  tricks  were  called 
mains  (or  hands)  at  Guerande.  The  Baroness  would  press  her 
foot  on  her  sister-in-law's  as  many  times  as  she  had,  as  she 
believed,  tricks  in  her  hand.  The  question  of  play  or  no  play 
on  occasions  when  the  pool  was  full  led  to  secret  struggles  in 
which  covetousness  contended  with  alarms.  The  players  would 
ask  each  other,  "Are  you  coming  in  ?  "  with  feelings  of  envy 
of  those  who  had  good  enough  cards  to  tempt  fate  and  spasms 
of  despair  when  they  were  forced  to  retire. 

If  Charlotte  de  Kergarouet,  who  was  commonly  thought 
foolhardy,  was  lucky  in  her  daring  when  her  aunt  had  won 
nothing,  she  was  treated  with  coldness  when  they  got  home, 
and  had  a  little  lecture  :  "  She  was  too  decided  and  forward  ; 
a  young  girl  ought  not  to  challenge  persons  older  than  her- 
self; she  had  an  overbold  manner  of  seizing  the  pool  or  de- 
claring to  play  ;  a  young  person  should  show  more  reserve  and 
modesty  in  her  manners ;  it  was  not  seemly  to  laugh  at  the 
misfortunes  of  others,"  and  so  forth. 

Then  perennial  jests,  repeated  a  thousand  times  a  year,  but 
always  fresh,  turned  on  the  carriage  of  the  basket  when  the 
pool  overfilled  it.  They  must  get  oxen  to  draw  it,  elephants, 
horses,  asses,  dogs.  And  at  the  end  of  twenty  years  no  One 
noticed  the  staleness  of  the  joke  ;  it  always  provoked  the  same 


BE  A  TRIX.  41 

smile.  It  was  the  same  thing  with  the  remarks  caused  by  the 
annoyance  of  seeing  a  pool  taken  from  those  who  had  helped 
to  fill  it  and  got  nothing  out.  The  cards  were  dealt  with 
automatic  slowness.  They  talked  in  chest  tones.  And  these 
respectable  and  high-born  personages  were  so  delightfully 
mean  as  to  suspect  each  other's  play.  Mademoiselle  de  Pen- 
Hoel  almost  always  accused  the  cure  of  cheating  when  he  won 
a  pool. 

"  But  what  is  so  odd,"  the  cure  would  say,  "  is  that  I  never 
cheat  when  I  am  fined." 

No  one  laid  down  a  card  without  profound  meditation, 
without  keen  scrutiny,  and  more  or  less  astute  hints,  inge- 
nious and  searching  remarks.  The  deals  were  interrupted, 
you  may  be  sure,  by  gossip  as  to  what  was  going  on  in  the 
town,  or  discussions  on  politics.  Frequently  the  players 
would  pause  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  their  cards  held  in  a 
fan  against  their  chest,  absorbed  in  talk.  Then,  if  after  such 
an  interruption  a  counter  was  short  in  the  pool,  everybody 
was  certain  that  his  or  her  counter  was  not  missing  ;  and  gen- 
erally it  was  the  chevalier  who  made  up  the  loss,  under  general 
accusations  of  thinking  of  nothing  but  the  singing  in  his  ears, 
his  headache,  or  his  fads,  and  of  forgetting  to  put  in.  As 
soon  as  he  had  paid  up  a  counter,  old  Zephirine  or  the  cun- 
ning hunchback  was  seized  with  remorse  ;  they  then  fancied 
that  perhaps  the  fault  was  theirs ;  they  thought,  they  doubted  ; 
but,  after  all,  the  chevalier  could  afford  the  little  loss  !  The 
Baron  often  quite  forgot  what  he  was  about  when  the  misfor- 
tunes of  the  royal  family  came  under  discussion. 

Sometimes  the  game  resulted  in  a  way  that  was  invariably  a 
surprise  to  the  players,  who  each  counted  on  being  the  winner. 
After  a  certain  number  of  rounds  each  had  won  back  his 
counters  and  went  away,  the  hour  being  late,  without  loss  or 
profit,  but  not  without  excitement.  On  these  depressing 
evenings  the  mouche  was  abused  ;  it  had  not  been  interesting; 
the  players  accused  the  game,  as  negroes  beat  the  reflection  of 


42  BE  A  TRIX. 

the  moon  in  water  when  the  weather  is  bad.     The  evening 
had  been  dull ;  they  had  toiled  so  hard  for  so  little. 

When,  on  their  first  visit,  the  Vicomte  de  Kergarouet  and  his 
wife  spoke  of  whist  and  boston  as  games  more  interesting  than 
mouche,  and  were  encouraged  to  teach  them  by  the  Baroness, 
who  was  bored  to  death  by  mouche,  the  company  lent  them- 
selves to  the  innovation,  not  without  strong  protest;  but  it  was 
impossible  to  make  these  games  understood  ;  and  as  soon  as 
the  Kergarouets  had  left,  they  were  spoken  of  as  overwhelm- 
ingly abstruse,  as  algebraical  puzzles,  and  incredibly  difficult. 
They  all  preferred  their  beloved  mouche,  their  unpretentious 
little  mouche.  And  mouche  triumphed  over  the  modern  games, 
as  old  things  constantly  triumph  over  new  in  Brittany. 

While  the  cure  dealt  the  cards,  the  Baroness  was  asking  the 
Chevalier  du  Halga  the  same  questions  as  she  had  asked  the 
day  before  as  to  his  health.  The  chevalier  made  it  a  point 
of  honor  to  have  some  new  complaint.  Though  the  questions 
were  always  the  same,  the  captain  had  a  great  advantage  in  his 
replies.  To-day  his  false  ribs  had  been  troubling  him.  The 
remarkable  thing  was  that  the  worthy  man  never  complained 
of  his  wounds.  Everything  serious  he  was  prepared  for,  he 
understood  it ;  but  fantastic  ailments — pains  in  his  head,  dogs 
devouring  his  inside,  bells  ringing  in  his  ears — and  a  thousand 
other  crotchets  worried  him  greatly  ;  he  set  up  as  an  incurable, 
with  all  the  more  reason  that  physicians  know  no  remedy  for 
maladies  that  are  non-existent. 

"Yesterday,  I  fancy  you  had  pains  in  your  legs,"  said  the 
cure  very  seriously. 

"They  move  about,"  replied  du  Halga. 

"Legs  in  your  false  ribs?"  asked  Mademoiselle  Zephirine. 

"And  made  no  halt  on  the  way  ?  "  said  Mademoiselle  de 
Pen-Hoel  with  a  smile. 

The  chevalier  bowed  gravely,  with  a  negative  shake  of  the 
head,  not  without  fun  in  it,  which  would  have   proved  to  an 


BEA  TRIX.  43 

observer  that  in  his  youth  the  seaman  must  have  been  witty, 
loved  and  loving.  His  fossilized  life  at  Guerande  covered 
perhaps  many  memories.  As  he  stood  planted  on  his  heron's 
legs  in  the  sun,  stupidly  watching  the  sea  or  his  dog  sporting 
on  the  mall,  perhaps  he  was  alive  again  in  the  earthly  para- 
dise of  a  past  rich  in  remembrance. 

"  So  the  old  Due  de  Lenoncourt  is  dead  ?  "  said  the  Baron, 
recalling  the  passage  in  the  "  Quotidienne  "  at  which  his  wife 
had  stopped.  "  Well,  well,  the  first  gentleman-in-waiting 
had  not  long  to  wait  before  following  his  master.  I  shall  soon 
go  too." 

"  My  dear !  my  dear!"  said  his  wife,  gently  patting  his 
lean  and  bony  hand. 

"  Let  him  talk,  sister,"  said  Zephirine.  "  So  long  as  I  am 
above  ground,  he  will  not  go  under  ground.  He  is  younger 
than  I  am." 

A  cheerful  smile  brightened  the  old  woman's  face  when  the 
Baron  dropped  a  reflection  of  this  kind,  the  players  and  callers 
would  look  at  each  other  anxiously,  grieved  to  find  the  King 
of  Guerande  out  of  spirits.  Those  who  had  come  to  see  him 
would  say  as  they  went  away,  "  Monsieur  de  Guenic  is  much 
depressed;  have  you  noticed  how  much  he  sleeps?"  And 
next  day  all  Guerande  would  be  talking  of  it :  "  The  Baron 
du  Guenic  is  failing."  The  words  began  the  conversation  in 
every  house  in  the  place. 

"  And  is  Thisbe  well?"  asked  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel 
as  soon  as  the  deal  was  over. 

"The  poor  little  beast  is  like  me,"  said  the  chevalier. 
"  Her  nerves  are  out  of  order  ;  she  is  always  holding  up  one 
of  her  legs  as  she  runs.      Like  this." 

And  in  showing  how  Thisbe  ran,  by  bending  his  arm  as  he 
raised  it,  the  chevalier  allowed  his  neighbor,  Mademoiselle  de 
Pen-Hoel,  to  see  his  cards;  she  wanted  to  know  whether  he 
had  trumps  or  mistigris.  This  was  the  first  finesse  to  which  he 
fell  a  prey. 


44  BE  A  TRIX. 

"Oh  !  "  exclaimed  the  Baroness,  "  the  tip  of  Monsieur  le 
Cure's  nose  has  turned  pale,  he  must  have  mistigris  !  " 

The  joy  of  having  mistigris  was  so  great  to  the  cure,  as  to 
all  the  players,  that  the  poor  priest  could  not  disguise  it. 
There  is  in  each  human  face  some  spot  where  every  secret 
emotion  of  the  heart  betrays  itself;  and  these  good  people, 
accustomed  to  watch  each  other,  had,  after  the  lapse  of  years, 
discovered  the  weak  place  in  the  cure — when  he  had  mistigris 
the  tip  of  his  nose  turned  white.  Then  they  all  took  care 
not  to  play. 

"You  have  had  visitors  to-day?"  said  the  chevalier  to 
Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel. 

"Yes;  one  of  my  brother-in-law's  cousins.  He  surprised 
me  by  telling  me  of  the  intended  marriage  of  Madame  la 
Comtesse  de  Kergarouet,  a  Demoiselle  de  Fontaine " 

"A  daughter  of  Grand-Jacques!"  exclaimed  du  Halga, 
who  during  his  stay  in  Paris  had  never  left  his  admiral's 
side. 

".The  Countess  inherits  everything;  she  has  married  a  man 
who  was  ambassador.  He  told  me  the  most  extraordinary 
things  about  our  neighbor,  Mademoiselle  des  Touches ;  so 
extraordinary,  that  I  will  not  believe  them.  Calyste  could 
never  be  so  attentive  to  her ;  he  has  surely  enough  good  sense 
to  perceive  such  monstrosities." 

"  Monstrosities  !  "  said  the  Baron,  roused  by  the  word. 

The  Baroness  and  the  priest  looked  meaningly  at  each 
other.  The  cards  were  dealt.  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel 
had  mistigris;  she  did  not  want  to  continue  the  conversation, 
but  was  glad  to  cover  her  delight  under  the  general  amaze- 
ment caused  by  this  word. 

"It  is  your  turn  to  lead,  Monsieur  le  Baron,"  said  she, 
bridling. 

"  My  dear  nephew  is  not  one  of  those  young  men  who 
like  monstrosities,"  said  Zephirine,  poking  her  knitting-pin 
through  her  hair, 


BEATRIX.  45 

"  Mistigris  !  "  cried  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel,  without 
answering  her  friend. 

The  cure,  who  appeared  fully  informed  as  to  all  that  con- 
cerned Calyste  and  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  did  not  enter 
the  lists. 

"What  does  she  do  that  is  so  extraordinary,  this  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches?"  asked  the  Baron. 

"  She  smokes,"  said  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel. 

"It  is  very  wholesome,"  said  the  chevalier. 

"  Her  bacon  ?  "  asked  the  Baron. 

"  Her  bacon  !     She  does  not  save  it,"  retorted  the  old  maid. 

"Every  one  played,  and  every  one  is  looed  ;  I  have  the 
king,  queen,  and  knave  of  trumps,  mistigris,  and  a  king," 
said  the  Baroness.      "The  pool  is  ours,  sister." 

This  stroke,  won  without  play,  overwhelmed  Mademoiselle 
de  Pen-Hoel,  who  thought  no  more  of  Calyste  and  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches.  At  nine  o'clock  no  one  remained  in 
the  room  but  the  Baroness  and  the  cure.  The  four  old 
people  had  gone  away  and  to  bed. 

The  chevalier,  as  usual,  escorted  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel 
to  her  own  house  in  the  market-place,  making  remarks  on  the 
skill  of  the  last  player,  on  their  good  or  ill  luck,  or  on  the 
ever-new  glee  with  which  Mademoiselle  Zephirine's  pocket 
engulfed  her  winnings,  for  the  old  blind  woman  made  no 
attempt  now  to  disguise  the  expression  of  her  sentiments  in 
her  face.  Madame  du  Guenic's  absence  of  mind  was  their 
subject  to-night.  The  chevalier  had  observed  the  charming 
Irishwoman's  inattention  to  the  game.  On  the  doorstep, 
when  her  boy  had  gone  upstairs,  the  old  lady  replied  in  con- 
fidence to  the  chevalier's  guesses  as  to  the  Baroness'  strange 
manner  by  these  words,  big  with  importance — 

"  I  know  the  reason  ;  Calyste  is'done  for  if  he  is  not  soon 
married.  He  is  in  love  with  Mademoiselle  des  Touches — an 
actress  !  " 

"  In  that  case,  send  for  Charlotte." 


46  BE  A  TRIX. 

"  My  sister  shall  hear  from  me  to-morrow,"  said  Mademoi- 
selle de  Pen-Hoel,  bidding  him  good-night. 

From  this  study  of  a  normal  evening,  the  commotion  may 
be  imagined  that  was  produced  in  the  home  circles  of  Guer- 
ande  by  the  arrival,  the  stay,  the  departure,  or  even  the  passing 
through  of  a  stranger. 

When  not  a  sound  was  audible  in  the  Baron's  room  or  in 
his  sister's,  Madame  du  Guenic  turned  to  the  priest,  who  was 
pensively  playing  with  the  counters. 

"  I  see  that  you  at  last  share  my  uneasiness  about  Calyste," 
she  said. 

"  Did  you  notice  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-HoeTs  prim  air  this 
evening?"  asked  he. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  Baroness. 

"She  has,  I  know,  the  very  best  intentions  toward  our  dear 
Calyste ;  she  loves  him  as  if  he  were  her  son  ;  and  his  conduct 
in  la  Vandee  at  his  father's  side,  with  Madame's  praise  of  his 
devoted  behavior,  has  added  to  the  affection  Mademoiselle  de 
Pen-Hoel  feels  for  him.  She  will  endow  either  of  her  nieces 
whom  Calyste  may  marry  with  all  her  fortune  by  deed  of 
gift. 

"  You  have,  I  know,  in  Ireland,  a  far  richer  match  for  your 
beloved  boy ;  but  it  is  well  to  have  two  strings  to  one's  bow. 
In  the  event  of  your  family  not  choosing  to  undertake  to  settle 
anything  on  Calyste,  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel's  fortune  is 
not  to  be  despised.  You  could,  no  doubt,  find  your  son  a 
wife  with  seven  thousand  francs  a  year,  but  not  the  savings 
of  forty  years,  nor  lands  managed,  tilled,  and  kept  up  as 
Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel's  are.  That  wicked  woman,  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches,  has  come  to  spoil  everything.  We  have 
at  last  found  out  something  about  her." 

"  Well  ?  "  asked  the  mother. 

"Oh,  she  is  a  slut,  a  baggage,"  exclaimed  the  cure.  "A 
woman  of  doubtful  habits,  always  hanging  about  the  theatres 
in  the  company  of  actors  and  actresses,  squandering  her  for- 


BEATRIX.  47 

tune  with  journalists,  painters,  musicians — the  devil's  own,  in 
short !  When  she  writes,  she  uses  a  different  name  in  her 
books,  and  is  better  known  by  that,  it  is  said,  than  by  that 
of  des  Touches.  A  perfect  imp,  who  has  never  been  inside  a 
church  since  her  first  communion,  excepting  to  stare  at  statues 
or  pictures.  She  has  spent  her  fortune  in  decorating  les 
Touches  in  the  most  improper  manner  to  make  it  a  sort  of 
Mahomet's  paradise,  where  the  houris  are  not  women.  There 
is  more  good  wine  drunk  there  while  she  is  in  the  place  than 
in  all  Guerande  beside  in  a  year.  Last  year  the  Demoiselles 
Bougniol  had  for  lodgers  some  men  with  goats'  beards,  sus- 
pected of  being  '  blues,'  who  used  to  go  to  her  house,  and 
who  sang  songs  that  made  those  virtuous  girls  blush  and  weep. 
That  is  the  woman  your  son  at  present  adores. 

"  If  that  creature  were  to  ask  this  evening  for  one  of  the 
atrocious  books  in  which  atheists  nowadays  laugh  everything 
to  scorn,  the  young  chevalier  would  come  and  saddle  his 
horse  with  his  own  hands,  to  ride  off  at  a  gallop  to  fetch  it  for 
her  from  Nantes.  I  do  not  know  that  Calyste  would  do  so 
much  for  the  church.  And  then,  Bretonne  as  she  is,  she  is 
not  a  Royalist.  If  it  were  necessary  to  march  out,  gun  in 
hand,  for  the  good  cause,  should  Mademoiselle  des  Touches — 
or  Camille  Maupin,  for  that,  I  remember,  is  her  name — want 
to  keep  Calyste  with  her,  your  son  would  let  his  old  father  set 
out  alone." 

"No,"  said  the  Baroness. 

"  I  should  not  like  to  put  him  to  the  test,  you  might  feel  it 
too  painfully,"  replied  the  cure.  "All  .Guerande  is  in  a 
commotion  over  the  chevalier's  passion  for  this  amphibious 
creature  that  is  neither  man  nor  woman,  who  smokes  like  a 
trooper,  writes  like  a  journalist,  and,  at  this  moment,  has 
under  her  roof  the  most  malignant  writer  of  them  all,  accord- 
ing to  the  postmaster — a  trimmer  who  reads  all  the  papers. 
It  is  talked  of  at  Nantes.  This  morning  the  Kergarouet 
cousin,  who  wants  to  see  Charlotte  married  to  a  man  who  has 


48  BE  A  TRIX. 

sixty  thousand  francs  a  year,  came  to  call  on  Mademoiselle  de 
Pen-Hoel,  and  turned  her  head  with  roundabout  tales  about 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches  which  lasted  seven  hours.  There 
is  a  quarter  to  ten  striking  by  the  church  clock,  and  Calyste 
is  not  come  in  ;  he  is  at  les  Touches — perhaps  he  will  not 
come  back  until  morning." 

The  Baroness  listened  to  the  cure,  who  had  unconsciously 
substituted  monologue  for  dialogue ;  he  was  looking  at  this 
lamb  of  his  flock,  reading  her  uneasy  thoughts  in  her  face. 
The  Baroness  was  blushing  and  trembling.  When  the  Abbe 
Grimont  saw  tears  in  the  distressed  mother's  beautiful  eyes, 
he  was  deeply  touched. 

"  I  will  see  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  to-morrow,  be  com- 
forted," said  he,  in  an  encouraging  tone.  "The  mischief  is, 
perhaps,  not  so  great  as  rumor  says ;  I  will  find  out  the  truth. 
Beside,  Mademoiselle  Jacqueline  has  confidence  in  me. 
Again,  we  have  brought  up  Calyste,  and  he  will  not  allow 
himself  to  be  bewitched  by  the  demon  ;  he  will  do  nothing 
to  disturb  the  peace  of  his  family,  or  the  plans  we  are  making 
for  his  future  life.  Do  not  weep  ;  all  is  not  lost,  madame  ; 
one  fault  is  not  vice." 

"You  only  tell  me  the  details,"  said  the  Baroness.  "Was 
not  I  the  first  to  perceive  the  change  in  Calyste?  A  mother 
feels  keenly  the  pain  of  being  second  in  her  son's  affections, 
the  grief  of  not  being  alone  in  his  heart.  That  phase  of  a 
man's  life  is  one  of  the  woes  of  motherhood ;  but  though  I 
knew  it  must  come,  I  did  not  expect  it  so  soon.  And,  then, 
I  could  have  wished  that  he  should  have  taken  into  his  heart 
some  beautiful  and  noble  creature,  not  a  mere  actress,  a  pos- 
ture-maker, a  woman  who  frequents  theatres,  an  authoress 
accustomed  to  feign  feeling,  a  bad  woman  who  will  deceive 
him  and  make  him  wretched.     She  has  had  'affairs?'  " 

"With  many  men,"  said  the  Abbe  Grimont.  "And  yet 
this  miscreant  was  born  in  Brittany.  She  is  a  disgrace  to  her 
native  soil.     On  Sunday  I  will  preach  a  sermon  about  her." 


BE  A  TR1X.  49 

"By  no  means!"  exclaimed  the  Baroness.  "The  marsh- 
men  and  peasants  are  capable  of  attacking  les  Touches. 
Calyste  is  worthy  of  his  name  :  he  is  a  true  Breton  ;  and  some 
evil  might  come  of  it  if  he  were  there,  for  he  would  fight  for 
her  as  if  she  were  the  blessed  Virgin." 

"It  is  striking  ten;  I  will  bid  you  good-night,"  said  the 
abbe,  lighting  the  oribus  of  his  lantern,  of  which  the  clear 
glass-panes  and  glittering  metal-work  showed  his  housekeeper's 
minute  care  for  all  the  concerns  of  the  house.  "  Who  could 
have  told  me,  madame,"  he  went  on,  "that  a  young  man 
nursed  at  your  breast,  brought  up  by  me  in  Christian  ideas,  a 
fervent  Catholic,  a  boy  who  lived  like  a  lamb  without  spot, 
would  plunge  into  such  a  foul  bog?  " 

"But  is  that  quite  certain?"  said  the  mother.  "And, 
after  all,  how  could  any  woman  help  loving  Calyste?  " 

"No  proof  is  needed  beyond  that  witch's  prolonged  stay 
at  les  Touches.  During  twenty-four  years,  since  she  came  of 
age,  this  is  the  longest  visit  she  has  paid  here.  Happily  for 
us,  her  apparitions  have  hitherto  been  brief." 

"A  woman  past  forty  !  "  said  the  Baroness.  "I  have  heard 
it  said  in  Ireland  that  such  a  woman  is  the  most  dangerous 
mistress  a  young  man  can  have." 

"  On  that  point  I  am  ignorant,"  replied  the  cure.  "  Nay, 
and  I  shall  die  in  my  ignorance." 

"  Alas  !  and  so  shall  I,"  said  the  Baroness.  "  I  wish  now 
that  I  had  ever  been  in  love,  to  be  able  to  study,  advise,  and 
comfort  Calyste." 

The  priest  did  not  cross  the  clean  little  courtyard  alone ; 
Madame  du  Guenic  went  with  him  as  far  as  the  gate,  in 
the  hope  of  hearing  Calyste's  step  in  Guerande ;  but  she 
heard  only  the  heavy  sound  of  the  abbe's  deliberate  tread, 
which  grew  fainter  in  the  distance,  and  ceased  when  the 
shutting  of  the  priest's  door  echoed  through  the  silent 
town. 

The    poor    mother   went    indoors   in  despair   at    learning 
4 


SO  BEATRIX. 

that  the  whole  town  was  informed  of  what  she  had  believed 
herself  alone  in  knowing.  She  sat  down,  revived  the  lamp 
by  cutting  the  wick  with  a  pair  of  old  scissors,  and  took  up 
the  worsted  work  she  was  accustomed  to  do  while  waiting 
for  Calyste.  She  flattered  herself  that  she  thus  induced  her 
son  to  come  home  earlier,  to  spend  less  time  with  Mademoi- 
selle des  Touches.  But  this  stratagem  of  maternal  jealousy 
was  in  vain.  Calyste's  visits  to  les  Touches  became  more 
and  more  frequent,  and  every  evening  he  came  in  a  little  later ; 
at  last,  the  previous  night,  he  had  not  returned  until  midnight. 

The  Baroness,  sunk  in  meditation,  set  her  stitches  with  the 
energy  of  women  who  can  think  while  following  some  manual 
occupation.  Any  one  who  should  have  seen  her  bent  to  catch 
the  light  of  the  lamp,  in  the  midst  of  the  paneling  of  this 
room,  four  centuries  old,  must  have  admired  the  noble  pic- 
ture. Fanny's  flesh  had  a  transparency  that  seemed  to  show 
her  thoughts  legible  on  her  brow.  Stung,  now,  by  the  curi- 
osity that  comes  to  pure-minded  women,  she  wondered  by 
what  diabolical  secrets  these  daughters  of  Baal  so  bewitched 
a  man  as  to  make  him  forget  his  mother  and  family,  his  coun- 
try, his  self-interest.  Then  she  went  so  far  as  to  wish  she 
could  see  the  woman,  so  as  to  judge  her  sanely.  She  calcu- 
lated the  extent  of  the  mischief  that  the  innovating  spirit  of 
the  age — which  the  cure  described  as  so  dangerous  to  youthful 
souls — might  do  to  her  only  child,  till  now  as  guileless  and 
pure  as  an  innocent  girl,  whose  beauty  could  not  be  fresher 
than  his. 

Calyste,  a  noble  offshoot  of  the  oldest  Breton  and  the  no- 
blest Irish  blood,  had  been  carefully  brought  up  by  his 
mother.  Till  the  moment  when  the  Baroness  handed  him 
over  to  the  cure  of  Guerande,  she  was  sure  that  not  an  inde- 
cent word,  nor  an  evil  idea,  had  ever  soiled  her  son's  ear  or 
his  understanding.  The  mother,  after  rearing  him  on  her 
own  milk,  and  thus  giving  him  a  double  infusion  of  her  blood, 
could  present  him  in  virginal  innocence  to  the  priest  who, 


BEA  TRIX.  61 

out  of  reverence  for  the  family,  undertook  to  give  him  a 
complete  and  Christian  education.  Calyste  was  educated  on 
the  plan  of  the  seminary  where  the  Abbe  Grimont  had  been 
brought  up.  His  mother  taught  him  English.  A  mathemat- 
ical master  was  discovered,  not  without  difficulty,  among  the 
clerks  at  Saint-Nazaire.  Calyste,  of  course,  knew  nothing  of 
modern  literature,  or  of  the  latest  advance  and  progress  of 
science.  His  education  was  limited  to  the  geography  and 
emasculated  history  taught  in  girls'  schools,  to  the  Latin  and 
Greek  of  the  seminary,  to  the  literature  of  dead  languages, 
and  a  limited  selection  of  French  writers.  When,  at  sixteen, 
he  began  what  the  abbe  called  his  course  of  philosophy,  he 
was  still  as  innocent  as  at  the  moment  when  Fanny  had 
handed  him  over  to  the  cure.  The  church  was  no  less  ma- 
ternal than  the  mother ;  without  being  bigoted  or  ridiculous, 
this  well-beloved  youth  was  a  fervent  Catholic. 

The  Baroness  longed  to  plan  a  happy  and  obscure  life  for 
her  handsome  and  immaculate  son.  She  expected  some  little 
fortune  from  an  old  aunt,  about  two  or  three  thousand  pounds 
sterling;  this  sum,  added  to-  the  present  fortune  of  the 
Guenics,  might  enable  her  to  find  a  wife  for  Calyste  who 
would  bring  him  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  francs  a  year. 
Charlotte  de  Kergarouet,  with  her  aunt's  money,  some  rich 
Irish  girl,  or  any  other  heiress — it  was  a  matter  of  indifference 
to  the  Baroness.  She  knew  nothing  of  love ;  like  all  the 
people  among  whom  she  lived,  she  regarded  marriage  as  a 
stepping-stone  to  fortune.  Passion  was  a  thing  unknown  to 
these  Catholics,  old  people  wholly  occupied  in  saving  their 
souls,  in  thinking  of  God,  the  King,  and  their  own  wealth. 

No  one,  therefore,  can  be  surprised  at  the  gravity  of  the  re- 
flections that  mingled  with  the  wounded  feelings  in  this 
mother's  heart,  living,  as  she  did,  as  much  for  her  boy's 
interests  as  by  his  affection.  If  the  young  couple  would  but 
listen  to  reason,  by  living  parsimoniously  and  economizing, 
as  country  folk  know  how,  by  the  second  generation  the  du 


52  BE  A  TRIX. 

Guenics  might  repurchase  their  old  estates  and  reconquer  the 
splendor  of  wealth.  The  Baroness  hoped  to  live  to  be  old 
that  she  might  see  the  dawn  of  that  life  of  ease.  Mademoiselle 
du  Guenic  had  understood  and  adopted  this  scheme,  and  now 
it  was  threatened  by  Mademoiselle  des  Touches. 

Madame  du  Guenic  heard  midnight  strike  with  horror,  and 
she  endured  an  hour  more  of  fearful  alarms,  for  the  stroke  of 
one  rang  out,  and  still  Calyste  had  not  come  home. 

"  Will  he  stay  there?  "  she  wondered.  "  It  would  be  the 
first  time — poor  child." 

At  this  moment  Calyste' s  step  was  heard  in  the  street. 
The  poor  mother,  in  whose  heart  joy  took  the  place  of  anxiety, 
flew  from  the  room  to  the  gate  and  opened  it  for  her  son. 

"  My  dearest  mother,"  cried  Calyste,  with  a  look  of  vexa- 
tion, "why  sit  up  for  me?  I  have  the  latch-key  and  a  tinder- 
box." 

"  You  know,  my  child,  that  I  can  never  sleep  while  you  are 
out,"  said  she,  kissing  him. 

When  the  Baroness  had  returned  to  the  room,  she  looked 
into  her  son's  face  to  read  in  its  expression  what  had  hap- 
pened during  the  evening ;  but  this  look  produced  in  her,  as 
it  always  did,  a  certain  emotion  which  custom  does  not  weaken 
— which  all  loving  mothers  feel  as  they  gaze  at  their  human 
masterpiece,  and  which  for  a  moment  dims  their  sight. 

Calyste  had  black  eyes,  full  of  vigor  and  sunshine,  inherited 
from  his  father,  with  the  fine  fair  hair,  the  aquiline  nose  and 
lovely  mouth,  the  turned-up  finger-tips,  the  soft  complexion, 
finish,  and  fairness  of  his  mother.  Though  he  looked  not  unlike 
a  girl  dressed  as  a  man,  he  was  wonderfully  strong.  His  sinews 
had  the  elasticity  and  tension  of  steel  springs,  and  the  singular 
effect  of  his  black  eyes  had  a  charm  of  its  own.  As  yet  he  had 
no  hair  on  his  face ;  this  late  development,  it  is  said,  is  a  promise 
of  long  life.  The  young  chevalier,  who  wore  a  short  jacket 
of  black  velvet,  like  his  mother's  gown,  with  silver  buttons, 
had   a   blue   neckerchief,   neat  gaiters,  and  trousers  of  gray 


BE  A  TRIX.  53 

drill.  His  snow-white  forehead  bore  the  traces,  as  it  seemed.. 
of  great  fatigue,  but,  in  fact,  they  were  those  of  a  burden  of 
sad  thoughts.  His  mother,  having  no  suspicion  of  the  sorrows 
that  were  eating  the  lad's  heart  out,  ascribed  this  transient 
change  to  happiness.  Calyste  was,  nevertheless,  as  beautiful 
as  a  Greek  god,  handsome  without  conceit ;  for,  in  the  first 
place,  he  was  accustomed  to  see  his  mother,  and  he  also  cared 
bu:  little  for  beauty,  which  he  knew  to  be  useless. 

••'And  those  lovely  smooth  cheeks,"  thought  she,  "where 
the  rich  young  blood  flows  in  a  thousand  tiny  veins,  belong  to 
another  woman,  who  is  mistress,  too,  of  that  girl-like  brow? 
Passion  will  stamp  them  with  its  agitations,  and  dim  those  fine 
eyes,  as  liquid  now  as  a  child's  !  " 

The  bitter  thought  fell  heavy  on  Madame  du  Guenic's  heart 
and  spoilt  her  pleasure. 

It  must  seem  strange  that,  in  a  family  where  six  persons 
were  obliged  to  live  on  three  thousand  francs  a  year,  the  son 
should  have  a  velvet  coat  and  the  mother  a  velvet  dress ;  but 
Fanny  O'Brien  had  rich  relations  and  aunts  in  London  who 
reminded  the  Breton  Baroness  of  their  existence  by  sending 
her  presents.  Some  of  her  sisters,  having  married  well,  took 
an  interest  in  Calyste  so  far  as  to  think  of  finding  him  a  rich 
wife,  knowing  that  he  was  as  handsome  and  as  well  born  as 
their  exiled  favorite  Fanny. 

1 '  You  stayed  later  at  les  Touches  than  you  did  yesterday, 
my  darling  ?  "  she  said  at  last,  in  a  broken  voice. 

"Yes,  mother  dear,"  replied  he,  without  adding  any  ex- 
planation. 

The  brevity  of  the  answer  brought  a  cloud  to  his  mother's 
brow  :  she  postponed  any  explanation  till  the  morrow.  When 
mothers  are  disturbed  by  such  alarms  as  the  Baroness  felt  at 
this  moment,  they  almost  tremble  before  their  sons ;  they  in- 
stinctively feel  the  effects  of  the  great  emancipation  of  love  ; 
they  understand  all  that  this  new  feeling  will  rob  them  of; 
but,  at  the  same  time,  they  are,  in  a  sense,  glad  of  their  son's 


54  BE  A  TRIX. 

happiness  ;  there  is  a  fierce  struggle  in  their  hearts.  Though 
the  result  is  that  the  son  is  grown  up,  and  on  a  higher  level, 
true  mothers  do  not  like  their  tacit  abdication  ;  they  would 
rather  keep  their  child  little  and  wanting  care.  That,  per- 
haps, is  the  secret  of  mothers'  favoritism  for  weakly,  deformed, 
and  helpless  children. 

"You  are  very  tired,  dear  child,"  said  she,  swallowing 
down  her  tears.     "Go  to  bed." 

A  mother  who  does  not  know  everything  her  son  is  doing 
thinks  of  him  as  lost  when  she  loves  and  is  as  well  loved  as 
Fanny.  And  perhaps  any  other  mother  would  have  quaked 
in  her  place  as  much  as  Madame  du  Guenic.  The  patience 
of  twenty  years  might  be  made  useless.  Calyste — a  human 
masterpiece  of  noble,  prudent,  and  religious  training — might 
be  ruined  ;  the  happiness  so  carefully  prepared  for  him  might 
be  destroyed  for  ever  by  a  woman. 

Next  day  Calyste  slept  till  noon,  for  his  mother  would  not 
allow  him  to  be  roused  ;  Mariotte  gave  the  spoilt  boy  his 
breakfast  in  bed.  The  immutable  and  almost  conventual  rule 
that  governed  the  hours  of  meals  yielded  to  the  young  gen- 
tleman's caprices.  Indeed,  when  at  any  time  it  was  necessary 
to  obtain  Mademoiselle  du  Guenic's  bunch  of  keys  to  get  out 
something  between  meals  which  would  necessitate  intermin- 
able explanations,  the  only  way  of  doing  it  was  to  plead  some 
whim  of  Calyste's. 

At  about  one  o'clock  the  Baron,  his  wife,  and  mademoiselle 
were  sitting  in  the  dining-room  ;  they  dined  at  three.  The 
Baroness  had  taken  up  the  "  Quotidienne  "  and  was  finishing 
it  to  her  husband,  who  was  always  rather  more  wakeful  before 
his  meals.  Just  as  she  had  done,  Madame  du  Guenic  heard 
her  son's  step  on  the  floor  above,  and  laid  down  the  paper, 
saying — 

"  Calyste,  I  suppose,  is  dining  at  les  Touches  again  to-day  ; 
he  has  just  finished  dressing." 


BE  A  TRIX.  55 

"He  takes  his  pleasure — that  boy!"  said  the  old  lady, 
pulling  a  silver  whistle  out  of  her  pocket,  and  whistling  once. 

Mariotte  came  through  the  turret,  making  her  appearance 
at  the  door,  which  was  hidden  by  a  silk  damask  curtain,  like 
those  at  the  windows. 

"  Yes,"  said  she,  "  did  you  please  to  want  anything?  " 

"The  chevalier  is  dining  at  les  Touches;  we  shall  not  want 
the  fish." 

"  Well,  we  do  not  know  yet,"  said  the  Baroness. 

' '  You  seem  vexed  about  it,  sister  ;  I  know  by  the  tone  of 
your  voice,"  said  the  blind  woman. 

"Monsieur  Grimont  has  learned  some  serious  facts  about 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  who,  during  the  last  year,  has 
done  so  much  to  change  our  dear  Calvste." 

"  In  what  way?  "  asked  the  Baron. 

"  Well,  he  reads  all  sorts  of  books." 

"  Ah,  ha  !  "  said  the  Baron  ;  "  then  that  is  why  he  neglects 
hunting  and  riding." 

"  She  leads  a  very  reprehensible  life  and  calls  herself  by  a 
man's  name,"  Madame  du  Guenic  went  on. 

"A  nickname  among  comrades,"  said  the  old  man.  "I 
used  to  be  called  V Intime,  the  Comte  de  Fontaine  was  Grand- 
Jacques,  the  Marquis  de  Montauran  was  le  Gars.  I  was  a 
great  friend  of  Ferdinand' 's ;  he  did  not  submit,  any  more 
than  I  did.  Those  were  good  times  !  There  was  plenty  of 
fighting,  and  we  had  some  fun  here  and  there,  all  the  same." 

These  reminiscences  of  the  war,  thus  taking  the  place  of 
paternal  anxiety,  distressed  Fanny  for  a  moment.  The  cure's 
revelations  and  her  son's  want  of  confidence  had  hindered 
her  sleeping. 

"And  if  Monsieur  le  Chevalier  should  be  in  love  with 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  where  is  the  harm?"  exclaimed 
Mariotte.  "She  is  a  fine  woman  and  has  thirty  thousand 
crowns  a  year." 

"  What  are  you  talking  about,  Mariotte,"  cried  the  old  man. 


56  BEATRIX. 

"  A  du  Guenic  to  marry  a  des  Touches  !  The  des  Touches 
were  not  even  our  squires  at  a  time  when  the  du  Guesclins 
regarded  an  alliance  with  us  as  a  distinguished  honor." 

"A  woman  who  calls  herself  by  a  man's  name — Camille 
Maupin  !  "  added  the  Baroness. 

"The    Maupins    are    an    old   family,"    said   the  old   man. 

"They  are  Norman,  and  bear  gules,  three "  he  stopped 

short.  "  But  she  cannot  be  a  man  and  a  woman  at  the  same 
time." 

"She  calls  herself  Maupin  at  the  theatre." 

"A  des  Touches  cannot  be  an  actress,"  said  the  old  man. 
"  If  I  did  not  know  you,  Fanny,  I  should  think  you  were 
mad." 

"  She  writes  pieces  and  books,"  the  Baroness  went  on. 

"Writes  books  !  "  said  the  Baron,  looking  at  his  wife  with 
as  much  astonishment  as  if  he  had  heard  of  a  miracle.  "  I 
have  heard  that  Mademoiselle  de  Scuderi  and  Madame  de 
Sevigne  wrote  books,  and  that  was  not  the  best  of  what  they 
did.  But  only  Louis  XIV.  and  his  court  could  produce  such 
prodigies." 

"  You  will  be  dining  at  les  Touches,  won't  you,  monsieur?" 
said  Mariotte  to  Calyste,  who  came  in. 

"Probably,"  said  the  young  man. 

Mariotte  was  not  inquisitive,  and  she  was  one  of  the  family; 
she  left  the  room  without  waiting  to  hear  the  question  Madame 
du  Guenic  was  about  to  put  to  Calyste. 

"You  are  going  to  les  Touches  again,  my  Calyste?"  said 
she,  with  an  emphasis  on  my  Calyste.  "And  les  Touches  is 
not  a  decent  and  reputable  house.  The  mistress  of  it  leads  a 
wild  life;  she  will  corrupt  our  boy.  Camille  Maupin  makes 
him  read  a  great  many  books — she  has  had  a  great  many  ad- 
ventures !  And  you  knew  it,  bad  child,  and  never  said  any- 
thing about  it  to  your  old  folk." 

"  The  chevalier  is  discreet,"  said  his  father,  "  an  old-world 
virtue  !  " 


BE  A  TRIX.  57 

"Too  discreet !  "  said  the  jealous  mother,  as  she  saw  the 
color  mount  to  her  son's  brow. 

"My  dear  mother,"  said  Calyste,  kneeling  down  before 
her;  "I  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  proclaim  my  defeat. 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  or,  if  you  prefer  it,  Camille 
Maupin,  rejected  my  love  eighteen  months  since,  when  she 
was  here  last.  She  gently  made  fun  of  me ;  she  might  be  my 
mother,  she  said ;  a  woman  of  forty  who  loved  a  minor  com- 
mitted a  sort  of  incest,  and  she  was  incapable  of  such  de- 
pravity. In  short,  she  laughed  at  me  in  a  hundred  ways,  and 
quite  overpowered  me,  for  she  has  the  wit  of  an  angel.  Then, 
when  she  saw  me  crying  bitter  tears,  she  comforted  me  by 
offering  me  her  friendship  in  the  noblest  way.  She  has  even 
more  heart  than  brains  ;  she  is  as  generous  as  you  are.  I  am 
like  a  child  to  her  now.  Then,  when  she  came  here  again,  I 
heard  that  she  loved  another  man  and  I  resigned  myself. 
Do  not  repeat  all  the  calumnies  you  hear  about  her ;  Camille 
is  an  artist ;  she  has  genius,  and  leads  one  of  those  exceptional 
lives  which  cannot  be  judged  by  provincial  or  ordinary  stand- 
ards." 

"  My  child  !  "  said  the  pious  Fanny,  "  nothing  can  excuse 
a  woman  for  not  living  according  to  the  ordinances  of  the 
church.  She  fails  in  her  duties  toward  God  and  toward  so- 
ciety by  failing  in  the  gentle  religion  of  her  sex.  A  woman 
commits  a  sin  even  by  going  to  a  theatre  ;  but  when  she  writes 
impieties  to  be  repeated  by  actors,  and  flies  about  the  world, 
sometimes  with  an  enemy  of  the  Pope's,  sometimes  with  a 
■»  musician Oil,  Calyste  !  you  will  find  it  hard  to  con- 
vince me  that  such  things  are  acts  of  faith,  hope,  or  charity. 
Her  fortune  was  given  her  by  God  to  do  good.  What  use 
does  she  make  of  it  ?  " 

Calyste  suddenly  stood  up ;  he  looked  at  his  mother  and 
said — 

"  Mother,  Camille  is  my  friend.  I  cannot  hear  her  spoken 
of  in  this  way,  for  I  would  give  my  life  for  her." 


58  BE  A  TRIX. 

"Your  life?"  said  the  Baroness,  gazing  at  her  son  in  ter- 
ror.     "  Your  life  is  our  life — the  life  of  us  all  !  " 

"  My  handsome  nephew  has  made  use  of  many  words  that 
I  do  not  understand,"  said  the  old  blind  woman,  turning  to 
Calyste. 

"Where  has  he  learned  them?"  added  his  mother.  "At 
les  Touches." 

"  Why,  my  dear  mother,  she  found  me  as  ignorant  as  a 
carp." 

"You  knew  all  that  was  essential  in  knowing  the  duties 
enjoined  on  us  by  religion,"  replied  the  Baroness.  "Ah! 
that  woman  will  undermine  your  noble  and  holy  beliefs." 

The  old  aunt  rose  and  solemnly  extended  her  hand  toward 
her  brother,  who  was  sleeping. 

"Calyste,"  said  she,  in  a  voice  that  came  from  her  heart, 
"  your  father  never  opened  a  book,,  he  speaks  Breton,  he 
fought  in  the  midst  of  perils  for  the  King  and  for  God. 
Educated  men  had  done  the  mischief,  and  gentlemen  of 
learning  had  deserted  their  country.     Learn  if  you  will." 

She  sat  down  again  and  began  knitting  with  the  vehemence 
that  came  of  her  mental  agitation.  Calyste  was  struck  by 
this  Phocion-like  utterance. 

"  In  short,  my  dearest,  I  have  a  presentiment  of  some  evil 
hanging  over  you  in  that  house,"  said  his  mother,  in  a  broken 
voice,  as  her  tears  fell. 

"Who  is  making  Fanny  cry?"  exclaimed  the  old  man, 
suddenly  wakened  by  the  sound  of  his  wife's  voice.  He 
looked  round  at  her,  his  son,  and  his  sister. 

"What  is  the  matter?" 

"  Nothing,  my  dear,"  replied  the  Baroness. 

"  Mamma,"  said  Calyste,  in  his  mother's  ear,  "it  is  im- 
possible that  I  should  explain  matters  now ;  but  we  will  talk 
it  over  this  evening.  When  you  know  all,  you  will  bless 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches." 

"Mothers  have  no  love  of  cursing,"  replied  the  Baroness, 


BE  A  TRIX.  69 

"  and  I  should  never  curse  any  woman  who  truly  loved  my 
Calyste." 

The  young  man  said  good-by  to  his  father,  and  left  the 
house.  The  Baron  and  his  wife  rose  to  watch  him  as  he 
crossed  the  courtyard,  opened  the  gate,  and  disappeared. 
The  Baroness  did  not  take  up  the  paper  again ;  she  was 
agitated.  In  a  life  so  peaceful,  so  monotonous,  this  little  dis- 
cussion was  as  serious  as  a  quarrel  in  any  other  family ;  and 
the  mother's  anxiety,  though  soothed,  was  not  dispelled. 
Whither  would  this  friendship,  which  might  demand  and  im- 
peril her  boy's  life,  ultimately  lead  him  ?  How  could  she, 
the  Baroness,  have  reason  to  bless  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  ? 
These  two  questions  were  as  all-important  to  her  simple  soul 
as  the  maddest  revolution  can  be  to  a  diplomatist.  Camille 
Maupin  was  a  revolution  in  the  quiet  and  simple  home. 

"I  am  very  much  afraid  that  this  woman  will  spoil  him  for 
us,"  said  she,  taking  up  the  newspaper  again. 

"My  dear  Fanny,"  said  the  old  Baron,  with  knowing 
sprightliness,  "you  are  too  completely  an  angel  to  understand 
such  things.  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  is,  they  say,  as  black 
as  a  crow,  as  strong  as  a  Turk,  and  she  is  forty — our  dear  boy 
was  sure  to  be  attracted  by  her.  He  will  tell  a  few  very  honor- 
able fibs  to  conceal  his  happiness.  Let  him  enjoy  the  illusions 
of  his  first  love." 

"If  it  were  anv  other  woman " 

"  But,  dearest  Fanny,  if  the  woman  were  a  saint,  she  would 
not  make  your  son  welcome." 

The  Baroness  went  back  to  the  paper. 

"I  will  go  to  see  her,"  said  the  old  man,  "and  tell  you 
what  I  think  of  her." 

The  speech  has  no  point  but  in  retrospect.  After  hearing 
the  history  of  Camille  Maupin,  you  may  imagine  the  Baron 
face  to  face  with  this  famous  woman. 

The  town  of  Guerande,  which  for  two  months  past  had  seen 
Calyste — its  flower  and  its  pride — going  every  day,  morning 


60  BE  A  TRIX. 

or  evening — sometimes  both  morning  and  evening — to  les 
Touches,  supposed  that  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  was  pas- 
sionately in  love  with  the  handsome  lad,  and  did  her  utmost 
to  bewitch  him.  More  than  one  girl  and  one  young  woman 
wondered  what  was  the  witchcraft  of  an  old  woman  that  she 
had  such  absolute  empire  over  the  angelic  youth.  And  so,  as 
Calyste  crossed  the  High  street  to  go  out  by  the  gate  to  le 
Croisic,  more  than  one  eye  looked  anxiously  after  him. 

It  now  becomes  necessary  to  account  for  the  reports  that 
were  current  concerning  the  personage  whom  Calyste  was  going 
to  see.  These  rumors,  swelled  by  Breton  gossip  and  enven- 
omed by  the  ignorance  of  the  public,  had  reached  even  the 
cure.  The  tax-receiver,  the  justice  of  the  peace,  the  head 
clerk  of  the  customs  at  Saint-Nazaire,  and  other  literate  per- 
sons in  the  district,  had  not  reassured  the  abbe  by  telling  him 
of  the  eccentric  life  led  by  the  woman  and  artist  hidden  under 
the  name  of  Camille  Maupin. 

She  had  not  yet  come  to  eating  little  children,  to  killing 
her  slaves,  like  Cleopatra,  to  throwing  men  into  the  river,  as 
the  heroine  of  the  "Tour  de  Nesle"  is  falsely  accused  of 
doing ;  still,  to  the  Abbe  Grimont,  this  monstrous  creature, 
at  once  a  siren  and  an  atheist,  was  a  most  immoral  combina- 
tion of  woman  and  philosopher,  and  fell  short  of  every  social 
law  laid  down  to  control  or  utilize  the  weaknesses  of  the  fair 
sex.  Just  as  Clara  Gazul  is  the  feminine  pseudonym  of  a 
clever  man  and  George  Sand  that  of  a  woman  of  genius,  so 
Camille  Maupin  was  the  mask  behind  which  a  charming  girl 
long  hid  herself — a  Bretonne  named  Felicite  des  Touches,  she 
who  was  now  giving  the  Baronne  du  Guenic  and  the  worthy 
Cure  of  Guerande  so  much  cause  for  anxiety.  This  family 
has  no  connection  with  that  of  the  des  Touches  of  Touraine, 
to  which  the  Regent's  ambassador  belongs,  a  man  more  famous 
now  for  his  literary  talents  than  for  his  diplomacy. 

Camille  Maupin,  one  of  the  few  famous  women  of  the  nine- 


BEATRIX.  61 

teenth  century,  was  long  supposed  to  be  really  a  man,  so 
manly  was  her  first  appearance  as  an  author.  Everybody  is 
now  familiar  with  the  two  volumes  of  dramas,  impossible  to 
put  on  the  stage,  written  in  the  manner  of  Shakespeare  or  of 
Lopez  de  Vega,  and  brought  out  in  1822,  which  caused  a  sort 
of  literary  revolution  when  the  great  question  of  Romanticism 
versus  Classicism  was  a  burning  one  in  the  papers,  at  clubs, 
and  at  the  Academic  Since  then  Camille  Maupin  has  written 
several  plays  and  a  novel  which  have  not  belied  the  success  of 
her  first  efforts,  now  rather  too  completely  forgotten,  except 
by  literati. 

An  explanation  of  the  chain  of  circumstances  by  which  a 
girl  assumed  a  masculine  incarnation — by  which  Felicite 
des  Touches  made  herself  a  man  and  a  writer — of  how, 
more  fortunate  than  Madame  de  Stael,  she  remained  free, 
and  so  was  more  readily  excused  for  her  celebrity — will,  no 
doubt,  satisfy  much  curiosity,  and  justify  the  existence  of  one 
of  those  monstrosities  which  stand  up  among  mankind  like 
monuments,  their  fame  being  favored  by  their  rarity — for  in 
twenty  centuries  scarcely  twenty  great  women  are  to  be 
counted.  Hence,  though  she  here  plays  but  a  secondary  part, 
as  she  had  great  influence  over  Calyste,  and  is  a  figure  in  the 
literary  history  of  the  time,  no  one  will  be  sorry  if  we  pause 
to  study  her  for  a  rather  longer  time  than  modern  fiction 
usually  allows. 

In  1793  Mademoiselle  Felicite  des  Touches  found  herself 
an  orphan.  Thus  her  estates  escaped  the  confiscation  which 
no  doubt  would  have  fallen  on  her  father  or  brother.  Her 
father  died  on  the  10th  of  August,  killed  on  the  palace  steps 
among  the  defenders  of  the  King,  on  whom  he  was  in  waiting 
as  major  of  the  bodyguard.  Her  brother,  a  young  member 
of  the  corps,  was  massacred  at  les  Carmes.  Mademoiselle 
des  Touches  was  but  two  years  old  when  her  mother  died  of 
grief  a  few  days  after  this  second  blow.  On  her  death-bed 
Madame  des  Touches  placed  her  little  girl  in  the  care  of  her 


62  BEATRIX. 

sister,  a  nun  at  Chelles.  This  nun,  Madame  de  Faucombe, 
very  prudently  took  the  child  to  Faucombe,  an  estate  of  some 
extent  near  Nantes,  belonging  to  Madame  des  Touches,  where 
she  settled  with  three  sisters  from  the  convent.  During  the 
last  days  of  the  Terror,  the  mob  of  Nantes  demolished  the 
chateau  and  seized  the  sisters  and  Mademoiselle  des  Touches, 
who  were  thrown  into  prison  under  a  false  charge  of  having 
harbored  emissaries  from  Pitt  and  from  Coburg.  The  ninth 
Thermidor  saved  them.  Felicite's  aunt  died  of  the  fright ; 
two  of  the  sisters  fled  from  France ;  the  third  handed  the 
little  girl  over  to  her  nearest  relation,  Monsieur  de  Faucombe, 
her  mother's  uncle,  who  lived  at  Nantes,  and  then  joined  her 
companions  in  exile. 

Monsieur  de  Faucombe,  a  man  of  sixty,  had  married  a 
young  wife,  to  whom  he  left  the  management  of  his  affairs. 
He  busied  himself  only  with  archaeology,  a  passion,  or,  to  be 
accurate,  a  mania,  which  helps  old  men  to  think  themselves 
alive.  His  ward's  education  was  left  entirely  to  chance. 
Felicite,  little  cared  for  by  a  young  woman  who  threw  herself 
into  all  the  pleasures  of  the  Emperor's  reign,  brought  herself 
up  like  a  boy.  She  sat  with  Monsieur  de  Faucombe  in  his 
library,  and  read  whatever  he  might  happen  to  be  reading. 
Thus  she  knew  life  well  in  theory,  and  preserved  no  inno- 
cence of  mind  though  virginal  at  heart.  Her  intelligence 
wandered  through  all  the  impurities  of  science  while  her  heart 
remained  pure.  Her  knowledge  was  something  amazing,  fed 
by  her  passion  for  reading  and  well  served  by  an  excellent 
memory.  Thus,  at  eighteen,  she  was  as  learned  as  the  authors 
of  to-day  ought  to  be  before  trying  to  write.  This  prodigious 
amount  of  study  controlled  her  passions  far  better  than  a 
convent  life,  which  only  inflames  a  young  girl's  imagination  ; 
this  brain,  crammed  with  undigested  and  unclassified  informa- 
tion, governed  the  heart  of  a  child.  Such  a  depravity  of 
mind,  absolutely  devoid  of  any  influence  on  her  chastity  of 
person,  would  have  amazed  a  philosopher  or  an  observer,  if 


BE  A  TRIX.  63 

any  one  at  Nantes  could  have  suspected  the  fine  qualities  of 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches. 

The  result  was  in  inverse  proportion  to  the  cause  :  Felicite 
had  no  predisposition  toward  evil ;  she  conceived  of  every- 
thing by  her  intelligence,  but  held  aloof  from  the  facts.  She 
delighted  old  Faucombe  and  helped  him  in  his  works,  writ- 
ing three  books  for  the  wort4iy  gentleman,  who  believed  them 
to  be  his  own,  for  his  spiritual  paternity  also  was  blind.  Such 
severe  work,  out  of  harmony  with  the  development  of  her 
girlhood,  had  its  natural  effect :  Felicite  fell  ill,  there  was  a 
fever  in  her  blood,  her  lungs  were  threatened  with  inflamma- 
tion. The  doctors  ordered  her  horse-exercise  and  social 
amusements.  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  became  a  splendid 
horsewoman,  and  had  recovered  in  a  few  months. 

At  eighteen  she  made  her  appearance  in  the  world,  where 
she  produced  such  a  sensation  that  at  Nantes  she  was  never 
called  anything  but  the  beautiful  Mademoiselle  des  Touches. 
But  the  adoration  of  which  she  was  the  object  left  her  insen- 
sible, and  she  had  come  to  this  by  the  influence  of  one  of  the 
sentiments  which  are  imperishable  in  a  woman,  however  su- 
perior she  may  be.  Snubbed  by  her  aunt  and  cousins,  who 
laughed  at  her  studies  and  made  fun  of  her  distant  manners, 
assuming  that  she  was  incapable  of  being  attractive,  Felicite 
aimed  at  being  light  and  coquettish — in  short,  a  woman.  She 
had  expected  to  find  some  interchange  of  ideas,  some  fascina- 
tion on  a  level  with  her  own  lofty  intelligence ;  she  was  dis- 
gusted by  the  commonplaces  of  ordinary  conversation  and  the 
nonsense  of  flirtation  ;  above  all,  she  was  provoked  by  the 
aristocratic  airs  of  the  military,  to  whom  at  that  time  every- 
thing gave  way. 

She  had,  as  a  matter  of  course,  neglected  the  drawing-room 
arts.  When  she  found  herself  less  considered  than  the  dolls 
who  could  play  the  piano  and  make  themselves  agreeable  by 
singing  ballads,  she  aspired  to  become  a  musician.  She  re- 
tired into  deep  solitude  and  set  to  work  to  study  unremittingly 


64  BEATRIX. 

under  the  guidance  of  the  best  master  in  the  town.  She  was 
rich,  she  sent  for  Steibelt  to  give  her  finishing  lessons,  to  the 
great  astonishment  of  her  neighbors.  This  princely  outlay  is 
still  remembered  at  Nantes.  The  master's  stay  there  cost  her 
twelve  thousand  francs.  She  became  at  last  a  consummate 
musician.  Later,  in  Paris,  she  took  lessons  in  harmony  and 
counterpoint,  and  composed  two  operas,  which  were  im- 
mensely successful,  though  the  public  never  knew  her  secret. 
These  operas  were  ostensibly  the  work  of  Conti,  one  of  the 
most  eminent  artists  of  our  day ;  but  this  circumstance  was 
connected  with  the  history  of  her  heart  and  will  be  explained 
presently.  The  mediocrity  of  provincial  society  wearied  her 
so  excessively,  her  imagination  was  full  of  such  grand  ideas,  that 
she  withdrew  from  all  the  drawing-rooms  after  reappearing  for 
a  time  to  eclipse  all  other  women  by  the  splendor  of  her 
beauty,  to  enjoy  her  triumph  over  the  musical  performers,  and 
win  the  devotion  of  all  clever  people ;  still,  after  proving  her 
power  to  her  two  cousins  and  driving  two  lovers  to  despera- 
tion, she  came  back  to  her  books,  to  her  piano,  to  the  works 
of  Beethoven,  and  to  old  Faucombe. 

In  1812  she  was  one-and-twenty ;  the  archaeologist  ac- 
counted to  her  for  his  management  of  her  property  ;  and  from 
that  time  forth  she  herself  controlled  her  fortune,  consisting 
of  fifteen  thousand  francs  a  year  from  les  Touches,  her  father's 
estate ;  twelve  thousand  francs,  the  income  at  that  time  from 
the  lands  of  Faucombe,  which  increased  by  a  third  when  the 
leases  were  renewed  ;  beside  a  capital  sum  of  three  hundred 
thousand  francs  saved  by  her  guardian.  Felicite  derived 
nothing  from  her  country  training  but  an  apprehension  of 
money  matters,  and  that  instinct  for  wise  administration 
which  perhaps  restores,  in  the  provinces,  the  balance  against 
the  constant  tendency  of  capital  to  centre  in  Paris.  She  with- 
drew her  three  hundred  thousand  francs  from  the  bank  where 
the  archaeologist  had  deposited  them,  and  invested  in  consols 
just  at  the  time  of  the  disastrous  retreat  from  Moscow.    Thus 


BEATRIX.  65 

she  had  thirty  thousand  francs  a  year  more.  When  all  her 
expenses  were  paid  she  had  a  surplus  of  fifty  thousand  francs 
a  year  to  be  invested. 

A  girl  of  one-and-twenty,  with  such  a  power  of  will,  was  a 
match  for  a  man  of  thirty.  Her  intellect  had  gained  immense 
breadth  and  habits  of  criticism,  which  enabled  her  to  judge 
sanely  of  men  and  things,  art  and  politics.  Thenceforward 
she  purposed  leaving  Nantes;  but  old  Monsieur  Faucombe  fell 
ill  of  the  malady  that  carried  him  off.  She  was  like  a  wife  to 
the  old  man  ;  she  nursed  him  for  eighteen  months  with  the 
devotion  of  a  guardian  angel,  and  closed  his  eyes  at  the  very 
time  when  Napoleon  was  fighting  with  Europe  over  the  dead 
body  of  France.  She  therefore  postponed  her  departure  for 
Paris  till  the  end  of  the  war. 

As  a  Royalist  she  flew  to  hail  the  return  of  the  Bourbons  to 
Paris.  She  was  welcomed  there  by  the  Grandlieus,  with 
whom  she  was  distantly  connected  ;  but  then  befell  the  catas- 
trophe of  the  20th  of  March,  and  everything  remained  in 
suspense.  She  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  on  the  spot  this 
last  resurrection  of  the  Empire,  of  admiring  the  "Grand 
Army"  which  came  out  on  the  Champ  de  Mars,  as  in  an 
arena,  to  salute  its  Caesar  before  dying  at  Waterloo.  Felicite's 
great  and  lofty  soul  was  captivated  by  the  magical  spectacle. 
Political  agitations  and  the  fairy  transformations  of  the  theat- 
rical drama,  lasting  for  three  months,  and  known  as  the  Hun- 
dred Days,  absorbed  her  wholly,  and  preserved  her  from  any 
passion,  in  the  midst  of  an  upheaval  that  broke  up  the  Royalist 
circle  in  which  she  had  first  come  out.  The  Grandlieus  fol- 
lowed the  Bourbons  to  Ghent,  leaving  their  house  at  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches'  service. 

Felicite,  who  could  not  accept  a  dependent  position,  bought 
for  the  sum  of  a  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  francs  one  of 
the  handsomest  mansions  in  the  Rue  du  Mont-Blanc,  where 
she  settled  on  the  return  of  the  Bourbons  in  1815  ;  the  garden 
alone  is  worth  two  million  francs  now.  Being  accustomed  to 
5 


66  BEATRIX. 

act  on  her  own  responsibility,  Felicite  soon  took  the  habit  of 
independent  action,  which  seems  the  privilege  of  men  only. 
In  1816  she  was  five-and-twenty.  She  knew  nothing  of  mar- 
riage ;  she  conceived  of  it  only  in  her  brain,  judged  of  it  by 
its  causes  instead  of  observing  its  effect,  and  saw  only  its  dis- 
advantages. Her  superior  mind  rebelled  against  the  abdica- 
tion which  begins  the  life  of  a  married  woman  ;  she  keenly  felt 
the  preciousness  of  independence  and  had  nothing  but  disgust 
for  the  cares  of  motherhood.  These  details  are  necessary  to 
justify  the  anomalies  that  characterize  Camille  Maupin.  She 
never  knew  father  or  mother,  she  was  her  own  mistress  from 
her  childhood,  her  guardian  was  an  old  antiquary,  chance 
placed  her  in  the  domain  of  science  and  imagination,  in  the 
literary  world,  instead  of  keeping  her  within  the  circle  drawn 
by  the  futile  education  given  to  women — a  mother's  lectures 
on  dress,  on  the  hypocritical  proprieties  and  man-hunting 
graces  of  her  sex.  And  so,  long  before  she  became  famous, 
it  could  be  seen  at  a  glance  that  she  had  never  played  the  doll. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  year  181 7  Felicite  des  Touches  per- 
ceived that  her  face  showed  symptoms  not  indeed  of  fading, 
but  of  the  beginning  of  fatigue.  She  understood  that  her 
beauty  would  suffer  from  the  fact  of  her  persistent  celibacy ; 
she  was  bent  on  remaining  beautiful,  for  at  that  time  she 
prized  her  beauty.  Knowledge  warned  her  of  the  doom  set 
by  Nature  on  her  creations,  which  deteriorate  as  much  by 
misapplication  as  by  ignorance  of  her  laws.  The  vision  of  her 
aunt's  emaciated  face  rose  before  her  and  made  her  shudder. 
Thus  placed  between  marriage  and  passion,  she  determined  to 
remain  free ;  but  she  no  longer  scorned  the  homage  that  she 
met  with  on  all  hands. 

At  the  date  when  this  story  begins  she  was  almost  the  same 
as  she  had  been  in  181 7.  Eighteen  years  had  passed  over  her 
and  left  her  still  untouched  ;  at  the  age  of  forty  she  might  have 
called  herself  twenty-five.  Thus  a  picture  of  her  in  1836  will 
represent  her  as  she  was  in  181 7.     Women  who  know  under 


BE  A  TRIX.  67 

what  conditions  of  temperament  and  beauty  a  woman  must 
live  to  resist  the  attacks  of  time  will  understand  how  and  why 
Felicite  des  Touches  enjoyed  such  high  privileges,  as  they 
study  a  portrait  for  which  the  most  glowing  colors  of  the 
palette  and  the  richest  setting  must  be  brought  into  play. 

Brittany  offers  a  singular  problem  in  the  predominance  of 
brown  hair,  brown  eyes,  and  a  dark  complexion,  in  a  country 
so  close  to  England,  where  the  atmospheric  conditions  are  so 
nearly  similar.  Does  the  question  turn  on  the  wider  one  of 
race  or  on  unobserved  physical  influences  ?  Scientific  men 
will  some  day  perhaps  inquire  into  the  cause  of  this  peculi- 
arity, which  does  not  exist  in  the  neighboring  province  of 
Normandy.  Pending  its  solution,  the  strange  fact  Jies  before 
us  that  fair  women  are  rare  among  the  women  of  Brittany, 
who  almost  always  have  the  brilliant  eyes  of  Southerners; 
but,  instead  of  showing  the  tall  figures  and  serpentine  grace 
of  Italy  or  Spain,  they  are  usually  small,  short,  with  neat,  set 
figures,  excepting  some  women  of  the  upper  classes  which 
have  been  crossed  bv  aristocratic  alliances. 

Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  a  thoroughbred  Bretonne,  is  of 
medium  height,  about  five  feet,  though  she  looks  taller.  This 
illusion  is  produced  by  the  character  of  her  countenance, 
which  gives  her  dignity.  She  has  the  complexion  which  is 
characteristic  of  Italian  beauty,  pale  olive  by  day,  and  white 
under  artificial  light  ;  you  might  think  it  was  animated  ivory. 
Light  glides  over  such  a  skin  as  over  a  polished  surface,  it 
glistens  on  it ;  only  strong  emotion  can  bring  a  faint  flush  to 
the  middle  of  each  cheek,  and  it  disappears  at  once.  This 
peculiarity  gives  her  face  the  placidity  of  a  savage.  The 
face,  long  rather  than  oval,  resembles  that  of  some  beautiful 
Isis  in  the  bas-reliefs  of  Egina ;  it  has  the  purity  of  a  Sphinx's 
head,  polished  by  desert  fires,  lovingly  touched  by  the  flame 
of  the  Egyptian  sun.  Her  hair,  black  and  thick,  falls  in 
plaited  loops  over  her  neck,  like  the  head-dress  with  ridged 
double  locks  of   the  statues  at  Memphis,  accentuating  very 


68  BE  A  TRIX. 

finely  the  general  severity  of  her  features.  She  has  a  full, 
broad  forehead,  bossy  at  the  temples,  bright  with  its  smooth 
surface  on  which  the  light  lingers,  and  moulded  like  that  of  a 
hunting  Diana ;  a  powerful,  willful  brow,  calm  and  still. 
The  eyebrows,  strongly  arched,  bend  over  eyes  in  which  the 
fire  sparkles  now  and  again  like  that  of  fixed  stars.  The  white 
of  the  eye  is  not  bluish,  nor  veined  with  red,  nor  is  it  pure 
white ;  its  texture  looks  horny,  still  it  is  warm  in  tone ;  the 
black  centre  has  an  orange  ring  round  the  edge ;  it  is  bronze 
set  in  gold — but  living  gold,  animated  bronze.  The  pupil  is 
deep.  It  is  not,  as  in  some  eyes,  lined,  as  it  were,  like  a 
mirror,  reflecting  the  light,  and  making  them  look  like  the 
eyes  of  tigers  and  cats ;  it  has  not  that  terrible  fixity  of  gaze 
that  makes  sensitive  persons  shiver ;  but  this  depth  has  infini- 
tude, just  as  the  brightness  of  mirror-eyes  has  finality.  The 
gaze  of  the  observer  can  sink  and  lose  itself  in  that  soul, 
which  can  shrink  and  retire  as  rapidly  as  it  can  flash  forth 
from  those  velvet  eyes.  In  a  moment  of  passion  Camille 
Maupin's  eye  is  superb;  the  gold  of  her  glance  lights  up  the 
yellowish  white,  and  the  whole  flashes  fire  ;  but  when  at  rest 
it  is  dull,  the  torpor  of  deep  thought  often  gives  it  a  look  of 
stupidity ;  and  when  the  light  of  the  soul  is  absent,  the  lines 
of  the  face  also  look  sad.  The  lashes  are  short,  but  as  black 
and  thick-set  as  the  hair  of  an  ermine's  tail.  The  lids  are 
tawny,  and  netted  with  fine  red  veins,  giving  them  at  once 
strength  and  elegance,  two  qualities  hard  to  combine  in 
women.  All  round  the  eyes  there  is  not  the  faintest  wrinkle 
or  stain.  Here  again  you  will  think  of  Egyptian  granite 
mellowed  by  time.  Only  the  cheek-bones,  though  softly 
rounded,  are  more  prominent  than  in  most  women,  and  con- 
firm the  impression  of  strength  stamped  on  the  face. 

Her  nose,  narrow  and  straight,  has  high-cut  nostrils,  with 
enough  of  passionate  dilation  to  show  the  rosy  gleam  of  their 
delicate  lining ;  this  nose  is  well  set  on  to  the  brow,  to  which 
it  is  joined  by  an  exquisite  curve,  and  it  is  perfectly  white  to 


BEATRIX.  69 

the  very  tip — a  tip  endowed  with  a  sort  of  proper  motion  that 
works  wonders  whenever  Camille  is  angry,  indignant,  or  re- 
bellious. There  especially — as  Talma  noted — the  rage  of 
irony  of  lofty  souls  finds  expression.  Rigid  nostrils  betray  a 
certain  shallowness.  The  nose  of  a  miser  never  quivers,  it  is 
tightly  set  like  his  lips ;  everything  in  his  face  is  as  close  shut 
as  himself. 

Camille's  mouth,  arched  at  the  corners,  is  brightly  red ;  the 
lips,  full  of  blood,  supply  that  living,  impulsive  carmine  that 
gives  them  such  infinite  charm  and  may  reassure  the  lover 
who  might  be  alarmed  by  the  grave  majesty  of  the  face.  The 
upper  lip  is  thin,  the  furrow  beneath  the  nose  dents  it  low 
down,  like  a  bow,  which  gives  peculiar  emphasis  to  her  scorn. 
Camille  has  no  difficulty  in  expressing  anger.  This  pretty  lip 
meets  the  broader  red  edge  of  a  lower  lip  that  is  exquisitely 
kind,  full  of  love,  and  carved,  it  might  be,  by  Phidias,  as  the 
edge  of  an  opened  pomegranate,  which  it  resembles  in  color. 
The  chin  is  round  and  firm,  a  little  heavy,  but  expressing  de- 
termination, and  finishing  well  this  royal,  if  not  goddess-like, 
profile.  It  is  necessary  to  add  that  below  the  nose  the  lip  is 
faintly  shaded  by  a  down  that  is  wholly  charming ;  nature 
would  have  blundered  if  she  had  not  there  placed  that  tender 
smoky  tinge. 

The  ear  is  most  delicately  formed,  a  sign  of  other  concealed 
daintinesses.  The  bust  broad,  the  bosom  small  but  not  flat, 
the  hips  slender  but  graceful.  The  slope  of  the  back  is  mag- 
nificent, more  suggestive  of  the  Bacchus  than  of  the  Venus 
Callipyge.  Herein  we  see  a  detail  that  distinguishes  almost 
all  famous  women  from  the  rest  of  their  sex ;  they  have  in  this 
a  vague  resemblance  to  men;  they  have  neither  the  pliancy 
nor  the  freedom  of  line  that  we  see  in  women  destined  by 
nature  to  be  mothers  ;  their  gait  is  unbroken  by  a  gentle  sway. 
This  observation  is,  indeed,  two-edged  ;  it  has  its  counterpart 
in  men  whose  hips  have  a  resemblance  to  those  of  women — 
men  who  are  cunning,  sly,  false,  and  cowardly. 


70  BEATRIX, 

Camille's  head,  instead  of  having  a  hollow  at  the  nape  of 
the  neck,  is  set  on  her  shoulders  with  a  swelling  outline  with- 
out an  inward  curve,  an  unmistakable  sign  of  power ;  and 
this  neck,  in  some  attitudes,  has  folds  of  athletic  firmness. 
The  muscles  attaching  the  upper  arm,  splendidly  moulded,  are 
those  of  a  colossal  woman.  The  arm  is  powerfully  modeled, 
ending  in  wrists  of  English  slenderness  and  pretty  delicate 
hands,  plump  and  full  of  dimples,  finished  off  with  pink  nails 
cut  to  an  almond  shape,  and  well  set  in  the  flesh.  Her  hands 
are  of  a  whiteness  which  proclaims  that  all  the  body,  full, 
firm,  and  solid,  is  of  a  quite  different  tone  from  her  face. 
The  cold,  steadfast  carriage  of  her  head  is  contradicted  by  the 
ready  mobility  of  the  lips,  their  varying  expression,  and  the 
sensitive  nostrils  of  an  artist. 

Still,  in  spite  of  this  exciting  promise,  not  wholly  visible  to 
the  profane,  there  is  something  provoking  in  the  calmness  of 
this  countenance.  The  face  is  melancholy  and  serious  rather 
than  gracious,  stamped  with  the  sadness  of  constant  medita- 
tion. Mademoiselle  des  Touches  listens  more  than  she  speaks. 
She  is  alarming  by  her  silence  and  that  look  of  deep  scrutiny. 
Nobody  among  really  well-informed  persons  can  ever  have 
seen  her  without  thinking  of  the  real  Cleopatra,  the  little 
brown  woman  who  so  nearly  changed  the  face  of  the  earth  ; 
but  in  Camille  the  animal  is  so  perfect,  so  homogeneous,  so 
truly  leonine,  that  a  man  with  anything  of  the  Turk  in  him 
regrets  the  embodiment  of  so  great  a  mind  in  such  a  frame, 
and  wishes  it  were  altogether  woman.  Every  one  fears  lest  he 
may  find  there  the  strange  corruption  of  a  diabolical  soul. 
Do  not  cold  analysis  and  positive  ideas  throw  their  light  upon 
the  passions  in  this  unwedded  soul?  In  her  does  not  judg- 
ment take  the  place  of  feeling?  Or,  a  still  more  terrible 
phenomenon,  does  she  not  feel  and  judge  both  together? 
Her  brain  being  omnipotent,  can  she  stop  where  other  women 
stop?  Has  the  intellectual  powers  left  the  affections  weak? 
Can  she  be  gracious  ?     Can  she  condescend  to  the  pathetic 


BE  A  TRIX.  71 

trifles  by  which  a  woman  busies,  amuses,  and  interests  the 
man  she  loves?  Does  she  not  crush  a  sentiment  at  once  if  it 
does  not  answer  to  the  infinite  that  she  apprehends  and  con- 
templates?    Who  can  fill  up  the  gulfs  in  her  eyes? 

We  fear  lest  we  should  find  in  her  some  mysterious  element 
of  unsubdued  virginity.  The  strength  of  a  woman  ought  to 
be  merely  symbolical ;  we  are  frightened  at  finding  it  real. 
Camille  Maupin  is  in  some  degree  the  living  image  of  Schiller's 
Isis,  hidden  in  the  depths  of  the  temple,  at  whose  feet  the 
priests  found  the  dying  gladiators  who  had  dared  to  consult 
her.  Her  various  "affairs,"  believed  in  by  the  world,  and 
not  denied  by  Camille  herself,  confirm  the  doubts  suggested 
by  her  appearance.  But  perhaps  she  enjoys  this  calumny? 
The  character  of  her  beauty  has  not  been  without  effect  on 
her  reputation ;  it  has  helped  her,  just  as  her  fortune  and 
position  have  upheld  her  in  the  midst  of  society.  If  a  sculptor 
should  wish  to  make  an  admirable  statue  of  Brittany,  he  might 
copy  Mademoiselle  des  Touches.  Such  a  sanguine,  bilious 
temperament  alone  can  withstand  the  action  of  time.  The 
perennially  nourished  texture  of  such  a  skin,  as  it  were  var- 
nished, is  the  only  weapon  given  to  women  by  nature  to  ward 
off  wrinkles,  which  in  Camille  are  hindered  also  by  the  pas- 
sivity of  her  features. 

In  1817  this  enchanting  woman  threw  open  her  house  to 
artists,  famous  authors,  learned  men,  and  journalists,  the  men 
to  whom  she  was  instinctively  attracted.  She  had  a  drawing- 
room  like  that  of  Baron  Gerard,  where  the  aristocracy  mingled 
with  distinguished  talents  and  the  cream  of  Parisian  woman- 
hood. Mademoiselle  des  Touches'  family  connections  and 
her  fine  fortune,  now  augmented  by  that  of  her  aunt  the  nun, 
protected  her  in  her  undertaking — a  difficult  one  in  Paris — of 
forming  a  circle.  Her  independence  was  one  cause  of  her 
success.  Many  ambitious  mothers  dreamed  of  getting  her  to 
marry  a  son  whose  wealth  was  disproportioned  to  the  splendor 
of  his  armorial  bearings.     Certain  peers  of  France,  attracted 


12  Beatrix. 

by  her  eighty  thousand  francs  a  year,  and  tempted  by  her 
splendid  house  and  establishment,  brought  the  strictest  and 
most  fastidious  ladies  of  their  family.  The  diplomatic  world, 
on  the  lookout  for  wit  and  amusement,  came  and  found  pleas- 
ure there. 

Thus  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  the  centre  of  so  many 
interests,  could  study  the  different  comedies  which  all  men, 
even  the  most  distinguished,  are  led  to  play  by  passion,  ava- 
rice, or  ambition.  She  soon  saw  the  world  as  it  really  is,  and 
was  so  fortunate  as  not  to  fall  at  once  into  such  an  absorbing 
love  as  engrosses  a  woman's  intellect  and  faculties  and  pre- 
vents her  wholesome  judgment.  Generally  a  woman  feels, 
enjoys,  and  judges,  each  in  turn  ;  hence  three  ages,  the  last 
coinciding  with  the  sad  period  of  old  age.  To  Felicite  the 
order  was  reversed.  Her  youth  was  shrouded  in  the  snows 
of  science,  the  chill  of  thoughtfulness.  This  transposition 
also  explains  the  oddity  of  her  life  and  the  character  of  her 
talents.  She  was  studying  men  at  the  age  when  most  women 
see  but  one;  she  despised  what  they  admire;  she  detected 
falsehood  in  the  flatteries  they  accept  as  truth  ;  she  laughed  at 
what  makes  them  serious. 

This  contradictory  state  lasted  a  long  time  ;  it  had  a  dis- 
astrous termination  ;  it  was  her  fate  to  find  her  first  love, 
new-born  and  tender  in  her  heart,  at  an  age  when  women  are 
required  by  nature  to  renounce  love.  Her  first  entanglement 
was  kept  so  secret  that  no  one  ever  knew  of  it.  Felicite,  like 
all  women  who  believe  in  the  commonsense  of  their  feelings, 
was  led  to  count  on  finding  a  beautiful  soul  in  a  beautiful 
body;  she  fell  in  love  with  a  face  and  discovered  all  the 
foolishness  of  a  lady's  man,  who  thought  of  her  merely  as  a 
woman.  It  took  her  some  time  to  get  over  her  disgust  and 
this  mad  connection.  Another  man  guessed  her  trouble,  and 
consoled  her  without  looking  for  any  return,  or  at  any  rate  he 
concealed  his  purpose.  Felicite  thought  she  had  found  the 
magnanimity  of  heart  and  mind  that  the  dandy  had  lacked. 


BE  A  TR1X.  73 

This  man  had  one  of  the  most  original  intellects  of  the  day. 
He  himself  wrote  under  a  pseudonym,  and  his  first  works  re- 
vealed him  as  an  admirer  of  Italy.  Felicite  must  needs  travel 
or  perpetuate  the  only  form  of  ignorance  in  which  she  re- 
mained. This  man,  a  skeptic  and  a  scoffer,  took  Felicite  to 
study  the  land  of  art.  This  famous  "Anonymous  "  may  be 
regarded  as  Camille  Maupin's  teacher  and  creator.  He  re- 
duced her  vast  information  to  order,  he  added  to  it  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  masterpieces  of  which  Italy  is  full,  and  gave  her 
that  subtle  and  ingenious  tone,  epigrammatic  and  yet  deep, 
which  is  characteristic  of  his  talent — always  a  little  eccentric 
in  its  expression — but  modified  in  Camille  Maupin  by  the 
delicate  feeling  and  the  ingenious  turn  natural  to  women  ;  he 
inoculated  her  with  a  taste  for  the  works  of  English  and  Ger- 
man literature,  and  made  her  learn  the  two  languages  while 
traveling. 

At  Rome,  in  1820,  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  found  herself 
deserted  for  an  Italian.  But  for  this  disaster  she  might  never 
have  become  really  famous.  Napoleon  once  said  that  Misfor- 
tune was  midwife  to  Genius.  This  event  also  gave  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches  at  once  and  for  ever  the  scorn  of  man- 
kind, which  is  her  great  strength.  Felicite  was  now  dead 
and  Camille  was  born. 

She  returned  to  Paris  in  the  company  of  Conti,  the  great 
musician,  for  whom  she  wrote  the  libretti  of  two  operas;  but 
she  had  no  illusions  left,  and  became,  though  the  world  did 
not  know  it,  a  sort  of  female  Don  Juan — without  either  debts 
or  conquests.  Encouraged  by  success,  she  published  the  two 
volumes  of  dramas  which  immediately  placed  Camille  Maupin 
among  the  anonymous  celebrities.  She  told  the  story  of  her 
betrayed  love  in  an  admirable  little  romance,  one  of  the 
masterpieces  of  the  time.  This  book,  a  dangerous  example, 
was  compared  and  on  a  level  with  "Adolphe,"  a  horrible 
lament,  of  which  the  counterpart  was  found  in  Camille's  tale. 
The  delicate  nature  of  her  literary  disguise  is  not  yet  fully 


74  BE  A  TRIX. 

understood  ;  some  refined  intelligences  still  see  nothing  in  it 
but  the  magnanimity  that  subjects  a  man  to  criticism  and 
screens  a  woman  from  fame  by  allowing  her  to  remain  un- 
known. 

In  spite  of  herself,  her  reputation  grew  every  day,  as  much 
by  the  influence  of  her  Salon  as  for  her  repartees,  the  sound- 
ness of  her  judgment,  and  the  solidity  of  her  acquirements. 
She  was  regarded  as  an  authority,  her  witticisms  were  re- 
peated, she  could  not  abdicate  the  functions  with  which 
Parisian  society  invested  her.  She  became  a  recognized  excep- 
tion. The  fashionable  world  bowed  to  the  talent  and  the 
wealth  of  this  strange  girl ;  it  acknowledged  and  sanctioned 
her  independence ;  women  admired  her  gifts  and  men  her 
beauty.  Indeed,  her  conduct  was  always  ruled  by  the  social 
proprieties.  Her  friendships  seemed  to  be  entirely  Platonic. 
There  was  nothing  of  the  authoress — the  female  author — about 
her ;  as  a  woman  of  the  world  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  is 
delightful — weak  at  appropriate  moments,  indolent,  coquettish, 
devoted  to  dress,  charmed  with  the  trivialities  that  appeal  to 
women  and  poets. 

She  perfectly  understood  that  after  Madame  de  Stael  there 
was  no  place  in  this  century  for  a  Sappho,  and  that  no  Ninon 
could  exist  in  Paris  when  there  were  no  great  lords,  no  volup- 
tuous court.  She  is  the  Ninon  of  intellect ;  she  adores  art 
and  artists ;  she  goes  from  the  poet  to  the  musician,  from  the 
sculptor  to  the  prose-writer.  She  is  full  of  a  noble  generosity 
that  verges  on  credulity,  so  ready  is  she  to  pity  misfortune 
and  to  disdain  the  fortunate.  Since  1830  she  has  lived  in  a 
chosen  circle  of  proved  friends,  who  truly  love  and  esteem 
each  other.  She  dwells  far  removed  from  such  turmoil  as 
Madame  de  StaeTs,  and  not  less  far  from  political  conflict ; 
and  she  makes  great  fun  of  Camille  Maupin  as  the  younger 
brother  of  George  Sand,*  of  whom  she  speaks  as  "Brother 
Cain,"  for  this  new  glory  has  killed  her  own.     Mademoiselle 

*  See  Preface. 


BEATRIX.  75- 

des  Touches  admires  her  happier  rival  with  angelic  readiness, 
without  any  feeling  of  jealousy  or  covert  envy. 

Until  the  time  when  this  story  opens  she  had  led  the  hap- 
piest life  conceivable  for  a  woman  who  is  strong  enough  to 
take  care  of  herself.  She  had  come  to  les  Touches  five  or 
six  times  between  1817  and  1834.  Her  first  visit  had  been 
made  just  after  her  first  disenchantment,  in  1818.  Her  house 
at  les  Touches  was  uninhabitable ;  she  sent  her  steward  to 
Guerande,  and  took  his  little  house  at  les  Touches.  As  yet 
she  had  no  suspicion  of  her  coming  fame ;  she  was  sad,  she 
would  see  no  one ;  she  wanted  to  contemplate  herself,  as  it 
were,  after  this  great  catastrophe.  She  wrote  to  a  lady  in 
Paris,  a  friend,  explaining  her  intentions,  and  giving  instruc- 
tions for  furniture  to  be  sent  for  les  Touches.  The  things 
came  by  ship  to  Nantes,  were  transhipped  to  a  smaller  boat 
for  le  Croisic,  and  thence  were  carried,  not  without  difficulty, 
across  the  sands  to  les  Touches.  She  sent  for  workmen  from 
Paris,  and  settled  herself  at  les  Touches,  which  she  particu- 
larly liked.  She  meant  to  meditate  there  on  the  events  of 
life,  as  in  a  little  private  chartreuse. 

At  the  beginning  of  winter  she  returned  to  Paris.  Then 
the  little  town  of  Guerande  was  torn  by  diabolical  curiosity  ; 
nothing  was  talked  of  but  the  Asiatic  luxury  of  Mademoiselle 
des  Touches.  The  notary,  her  agent,  gave  tickets  to  admit 
visitors  to  les  Touches,  and  people  came  from  Batz,  from  le 
Croisic,  and  from  Savenay.  This  curiosity  produced  in  two 
years  the  enormous  sum  for  the  gatekeeper  and  gardener  of 
seventeen  francs. 

Mademoiselle  did  not  come  there  again  till  two  years  later, 
on  her  return  from  Italy,  and  arrived  by  le  Croisic.  For 
some  time  no  one  knew  that  she  was  at  Guerande,  and  with 
her  Conti  the  composer.  Her  appearance  at  intervals  did 
not  srreatlv  excite  the  curiositv  of  the  little  town  of  Guerande. 
Her  steward  and  the  notary  at  most  had  been  in  the  secret  of 
Camille  Maupin's  fame.     By  this  time,  however,  new  idea*' 


76  BEATRIX. 

had  made  some  little  progress  at  Guerande,  and  several  per- 
sons knew  of  Mademoiselle  des  Touches'  double  existence. 
The  postmaster  got  letters  addressed  to  "  Camille  Maupin, 
aux  Touches." 

At  last  the  veil  was  rent.  In  a  district  so  essentially  Cath- 
olic, old-world,  and  full  of  prejudices,  the  strange  life  led  by 
this  illustrious  and  unmarried  woman  could  not  fail  to  start 
the  rumors  which  had  frightened  the  Abbe  Grimont ;  it  could 
never  be  understood  ;  she  seemed  an  anomaly. 

Felicite  was  not  alone  at  les  Touches ;  she  had  a  guest. 
This  visitor  was  Claud  Vignon,  the  haughty  and  contemptu- 
ous writer,  who,  though  he  has  never  published  anything  but 
criticism,  has  impressed  the  public  and  literary  circles  with 
an  idea  of  his  superiority.  Felicite,  who  for  the  last  seven 
years  had  made  this  writer  welcome,  as  she  had  a  hundred 
others — authors,  journalists,  artists,  and  people  of  fashion — 
who  knew  his  inelastic  temperament,  his  idleness,  his  utter 
poverty,  his  carelessness,  and  his  disgust  at  things  in  general, 
seemed  by  her  behavior  to  him  to  wish  to  marry  him.  She 
explained  her  conduct,  incomprehensible  to  her  friends, 
by  her  ambition  and  the  horror  she  felt  of  growing  old  ; 
she  wanted  to  place  the  rest  of  her  life  in  the  hands  of  a 
superior  man  for  whom  her  fortune  might  be  a  stepping- 
stone,  and  who  would  uphold  her  importance  in  the  literary 
world.  So  she  had  carried  off  Claud  Vignon  from  Paris  to 
les  Touches,  as  an  eagle  takes  a  kid  in  his  talons,  to  study 
him  and  take  some  vehement  step;  but  she  was  deceiving 
both  Calyste  and  Claud — she  was  not  thinking  of  marriage. 
She  was  in  the  most  violent  throes  that  can  convulse  a  soul 
so  firm  as  hers,  for  she  found  herself  the  dupe  of  her  own  in- 
tellect, and  saw  her  life  illuminated  too  late  by  the  sunshine 
of  love,  glowing  as  it  glows  in  the  heart  of  a  girl  of  twenty. 

Now  for  a  picture  of  Camille's  "  Chartreuse." 

At  a  few  hundred  paces  from  Guerande  the  terra  firma  of 
Brittany  ends  and  the  salt-marshes  and  sand-hills  begin.     A, 


BEATRIX.  77 

rugged  road,  to  which  vehicles  are  unknown,  leads  down  a 
ravine  to  the  desert  of  sands  left  by  the  sea  as  neutral  ground 
between  the  waters  and  the  land.  This  desert  consists  of 
barren  hills,  of  "pans"  of  various  sizes  edged  with  a  ridge 
of  clay,  in  which  the  salt  is  collected,  of  the  creek  which 
divides  the  mainland  from  the  island  of  le  Croisic.  Though 
in  geography  le  Croisic  is  a  peninsula,  as  it  is  attached  to 
Brittany  only  by  the  strand  between  it  and  the  Bourg  de  Batz, 
a  shifting  bottom  which  it  is  very  difficult  to  cross,  it  may  be 
regarded  as  an  island.  At  an  angle  where  the  road  from  le 
Croisic  to  Guerande  joins  the  road  on  the  mainland  stands  a 
country  house,  inclosed  in  a  large  garden  remarkable  for  its 
wrung  and  distorted  pine  trees — some  spreading  parasol-like 
at  the  top,  others  stripped  of  their  boughs,  and  all  showing 
red  scarred  trunks  where  the  bark  has  been  torn  away.  These 
trees,  martyrs  to  the  storm,  growing  literally  in  spite  of  wind 
and  tide,  prepare  the  mind  for  the  melancholy  and  strange 
spectacle  of  the  salt-marshes  and  the  sand-hills  looking  like 
solidified  waves. 

The  house,  well  built  of  schistose  stone  and  cement  held 
together  by  courses  of  granite,  has  no  pretensions  to  archi- 
tecture ;  the  eye  sees  only  a  bare  wall,  regularly  pierced  by 
the  windows ;  those  on  the  second  floor  have  large  panes,  on 
the  first  floor  small  quarries.  Above  the  second  floor  there 
are  lofts,  under  an  enormously  high-pointed  roof,  with  a  gable 
at  each  end,  and  two  large  dormers  on  each  side.  Under 
the  angle  of  each  gable  a  window  looks  out,  like  a  Cyclops' 
eye,  to  the  west  over  the  sea,  to  the  east  at  Guerande.  One 
side  of  the  house  faces  the  Guerande  road ;  the  other  the 
waste  over  which  le  Croisic  is  seen,  and  beyond  that  the  open 
sea.  A  little  stream  escapes  through  an  opening  in  the  garden- 
wall  on  the  side  by  the  road  to  le  Croisic,  which  it  crosses, 
and  is  soon  lost  in  the  sand  or  in  the  little  pool  of  salt-water 
inclosed  by  the  sand-hills  and  marsh-land,  being  left  there  by 
the  arm  of  the  sea. 

O 


78  BE  A  TRIX. 

A  few  fathoms  of  roadway,  constructed  in  this  break  in  the 
soil,  leads  to  the  house.  It  is  entered  through  a  gate;  the 
courtyard  is  surrounded  by  unpretentious  rural  outhouses — 
a  stable,  a  coach-house,  a  gardener's  cottage  with  a  poultry- 
yard  and  sheds  adjoining,  of  more  use  to  the  gatekeeper  than 
to  his  mistress.  The  gray  tones  of  this  building  harmonize 
delightfully  with  the  scenery  it  stands  in.  The  grounds  are 
an  oasis  in  this  desert,  on  the  edge  of  which  the  traveler  has 
passed  a  mud-hovel,  where  custom-house  officers  keep  guard. 
The  house,  with  no  lands,  or  rather  of  which  the  lands  lie  in 
the  district  of  Guerande,  derives  an  income  of  ten  thousand 
francs  from  the  marshes  and  from  farms  scattered  about  the 
mainland.  This  was  the  fief  of  les  Touches,  deprived  of  its 
feudal  revenues  by  the  Revolution.  Les  Touches  is  still  a 
property ;  the  marshmen  still  speak  of  the  Castle,  and  they 
would  talk  of  the  Lord  if  the  owner  were  not  a  woman. 
When  Felicite  restored  les  Touches,  she  was  too  much  of  an 
artist  to  think  of  altering  the  desolate-looking  exterior  which 
gives  this  lonely  building  the  appearance  of  a  prison.  Only 
the  gate  was  improved  by  the  addition  of  two  brick  piers  with 
an  architrave,  under  which  a  carriage  can  drive  in.  The  court- 
yard was  planted. 

The  arrangement  of  the  first  floor  is  common  to  most  coun- 
try houses  built  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  dwelling  was 
evidently  constructed  on  the  ruins  of  a  little  castle  perched 
there  as  a  link  connecting  le  Croisic  and  Batz  with  Guerande, 
and  lording  it  over  the  marshes.  A  hall  had  been  contrived 
at  the  foot  of  the  stairs.  The  first  room  is  a  large  wainscoted 
anteroom  where  Felicite  has  a  billiard-table ;  next  comes  an 
immense  drawing-room  with  six  windows,  two  of  which,  at  the 
gable-end,  form  doors  leading  to  the  garden,  down  ten  steps, 
corresponding  in  the  arrangement  of  the  room  with  the  door 
into  the  billiard-room  and  that  into  the  dining-room.  The 
kitchen,  at  the  other  end,  communicates  with  the  dining-room 
through  the  pantry.     The  staircase  is  between  the  billiard- 


BE  A  TRIX.  79 

room  and  the  kitchen,  which  formerly  had  a  door  into  the 
hall ;  this  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  closed,  and  opened  one 
to  the  courtyard. 

The  loftiness  and  spaciousness  of  the  rooms  enabled  Camille 
to  treat  this  first  floor  with  noble  simplicity.  She  was  careful 
not  to  introduce  any  elaboration  of  detail.  The  drawing- 
room,  painted  gray,  has  old  mahogany  furniture  with  green 
silk  cushions,  white  cotton  window-curtains  bordered  with 
green,  two  consoles,  and  a  round  table  ;  in  the  middle  is  a 
carpet  with  a  large  pattern  in  squares  ;  over  the  huge  chimney- 
place  are  an  immense  mirror  and  a  clock  representing  Apollo's 
car,  between  candelabra  of  the  style  of  the  Empire.  The  bil- 
liard-room has  gray  cotton  curtains,  bordered  with  green, 
and  two  divans.  The  dining-room  furniture  consists  of  four 
large  mahogany  sideboards,  a  table,  twelve  mahogany  chairs 
with  horsehair  seats,  and  some  magnificent  engravings  by 
Audran  in  mahogany  frames.  From  the  middle  of  the  ceiling 
hangs  an  elegant  lamp  such  as  were  usual  on  the  staircases  of 
fine  houses,  with  two  lights.  All  the  ceilings  and  the  beams 
supporting  them  are  painted  to  imitate  wood.  The  old  stair- 
case, of  wood  with  a  heavy  balustrade,  is  carpeted  with  green 
from  top  to  bottom. 

On  the  second  floor  were  two  sets  of  rooms  divided  by  the 
staircase.  Camille  chose  for  her  own  those  which  look  over 
the  marshes,  the  sand-hills,  and  the  sea,  arranging  them  as  a 
little  sitting-room,  a  bedroom,  a  dressing-room,  and  a  study. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  house  she  contrived  two  bedrooms, 
each  with  a  dressing-closet  and  anteroom.  The  servants' 
rooms  are  above.  The  two  spare  rooms  had  at  first  only  the 
most  necessary  furniture.  The  artistic  luxuries  for  which  she 
had  sent  to  Paris  she  reserved  for  her  own  rooms.  In  this 
gloomy  and  melancholy  dwelling,  looking  out  on  that  gloomy 
and  melancholy  landscape,  she  wanted  to  have  the  most  fan- 
tastic creations  of  art.  Her  sitting-room  is  hung  with  fine 
Gobelin   tapestry,  set   in   wonderfully   carved   frames.      The 


80  BEATRIX. 

windows  are  draped  with  heavy  antique  stuffs,  a  splendid 
brocade  with  a  doubly  shot  ground,  gold  and  red,  yellow  and 
green,  falling  in  many  bold  folds,  edged  with  royal  fringes 
and  tassels  worthy  of  the  most  splendid  baldachins  of  the 
church.  The  room  contains  a  cabinet  which  her  agent  found 
for  her,  worth  seven  or  eight  thousand  francs  now,  a  table  of 
carved  ebony,  a  writing  bureau,  brought  from  Venice,  with  a 
hundred  drawers,  inlaid  with  arabesques  of  ivory,  and  some 
beautiful  Gothic  furniture.  There  are  pictures  and  statuettes, 
the  best  that  an  artist  friend  could  select  in  the  old  curiosity 
shops,  where  the  dealers  never  suspected  in  1818  the  price 
their  treasures  would  afterward  fetch.  On  her  tables  stand 
fine  Chinese  vases  of  grotesque  designs.  The  carpet  is  Per- 
sian, smuggled  in  across  the  sand-hills. 

Her  bedroom  is  in  the  Louis  XV.  style,  and  a  perfectly 
exact  imitation.  Here  we  have  the  carved  wooden  bedstead, 
painted  white,  with  the  arched  head  and  side,  and  figures  of 
Loves  throwing  flowers,  the  lower  part  stuffed  and  upholstered 
in  brocaded  silk,  the  crown  above  decorated  with  four  bunches 
of  feathers;  the  walls  are  hung  with  India  chintz  draped 
with  silk  cords  and  knots.  The  fireplace  is  finished  with 
rustic  work  ;  the  clock  of  ormolu,  between  two  large  vases  of 
the  choicest  blue  Sevres  mounted  in  gilt  copper;  the  mirror 
is  framed  to  match.  The  Pompadour  toilet-table  has  its  lace 
hangings  and  its  glass ;  and  then  there  is  all  the  fanciful  small 
furniture,  the  duchesses,  the  couch,  the  little  formal  settee,  the 
easy-chair  with  a  quilted  back,  the  lacquer  screen,  the  curtains 
of  silk  to  match  the  chairs,  lined  with  pink  satin  and  draped 
with  thick  ropes  ;  the  carpet  woven  at  la  Savonnerie — in  short, 
all  the  elegant,  rich,  sumptuous,  and  fragile  things  among 
which  the  ladies  of  the  eighteenth  century  made  love. 

The  study,  absolutely  modern,  in  contrast  with  the  gallant 
suggestiveness  of  the  days  of  Louis  XV.,  has  pretty  mahogany 
furniture.  The  bookshelves  are  full ;  it  looks  like  a  boudoir ; 
there  is  a  divan  in  it.     It  is  crowded  with  the  dainty  trifles 


BE  A  TR1X.  81 

that  women  love  :  books  that  lock  up,  boxes  for  handkerchiefs 
and  gloves;  pictured  lamp-shades,  statuettes.  Chinese  gro- 
tesques, writing-cases,  two  or  three  albums,  paper-weights;  in 
short,  every  fashionable  toy.  The  curious  visitor  notes  with 
uneasy  surprise  a  pair  of  pistols,  a  narghileh,  a  riding-whip,  a 
hammock,  a  pipe,  a  fowling-piece,  a  blouse,  some  tobacco, 
and  a  soldier's  knapsack — a  motley  collection  characteristic 
of  Felicite. 

Every  lofty  soul  on  looking  around  must  be  struck  by  the 
peculiar  beauty  of  the  landscape  that  spreads  its  breadth  be- 
yond the  grounds,  the  last  vegetation  of  the  continent.  Those 
dismal  squares  of  brackish  water,  divided  by  little,  white  dykes 
on  which  the  marshman  walks,  all  in  white,  to  rake  out  and 
collect  the  salt  and  heap  it  up;  that  tract  over  which  salt- 
vapors  rise,  forbidding  birds  to  fly  across,  while  they  at  the 
same  time  choke  every  attempt  at  plant-life ;  those  sands 
where  the  eye  can  find  no  comfort  but  in  the  stiff  evergreen 
leaves  of  a  small  plant  with  rose-colored  flowers  and  in  the 
Carthusian  pink ;  that  pool  of  sea-water,  the  sand  of  the 
dunes,  and  the  view  of  le  Croisic — a  miniature  town  dropped 
like  Venice  into  the  sea ;  and  beyond,  the  immensity  of 
ocean,  tossing  a  fringe  of  foam  over  the  granite  reefs  to  em- 
phasize their  wild  forms — this  scene  elevates  while  it  saddens 
the  spirit,  the  effect  always  produced  in  the  end  by  anything 
sublime  which  makes  us  yearn  regretfully  for  unknown  things 
that  the  soul  apprehends  at  unattainable  heights.  Indeed, 
these  wild  harmonies  have  no  charm  for  any  but  lofty  natures 
and  great  sorrows.  This  desert,  not  unbroken,  where  the 
sunbeams  are  sometimes  reflected  from  the  water  and  the 
sand,  whiten  the  houses  of  Batz,  and  ripple  over  the  roofs  of 
le  Croisic  with  a  pitiless  dazzling  glare,  would  absorb  Camille 
for  days  at  a  time.  She  rarely  turned  to  the  delightful  green 
views,  the  thickets,  and  flowery  hedges  that  garland  Guerande 
like  a  bride,  with  flowers  and  posies  and  veils  and  festoons. 
She  was  suffering  dreadful  and  unknown  misery. 
6 


82  BE  A  TRIX. 

As  Calyste  saw  the  weathercocks  of  the  two  gables  peeping 
above  the  furze-bushes  of  the  high-road  and  the  gnarled  heads 
of  the  fir  trees,  the  air  seemed  to  him  lighter ;  to  him  Guer- 
ande  was  a  prison,  his  life  was  at  les  Touches.  Who  can- 
not understand  the  attractions  it  held  for  a  simple-minded 
lad? 

His  love,  like  that  of  Cherubino,  which  had  brought  him  to 
the  feet  of  a  personage  who  had  been  a  great  idea  to  him 
before  being  a  woman,  naturally  survived  her  inexplicable 
rejections.  This  feeling,  which  is  rather  the  desire  for  love 
than  love  itself,  had  no  doubt  failed  to  elude  the  inexorable 
analysis  of  Camille  Maupin,  and  hence,  perhaps,  her  repulses, 
a  nobleness  of  mind  misunderstood  by  Calyste.  And,  then, 
the  marvels  of  modern  civilization  seemed  all  the  more  daz- 
zling here  by  contrast  with  Guerande,  where  the  poverty  of 
the  Guenics  was  considered  splendor.  Here,  spread  before 
the  ravished  eyes  of  this  ignorant  youth,  who  had  never  seen 
anvthin?  but  the  vellow  broom  of  Brittanv  and  the  heaths  of 
la  Vendee,  lay  the  Parisian  glories  of  a  new  world  ;  just  as 
here  he  heard  an  unknown  and  sonorous  language.  Calyste 
here  listened  to  the  poetical  tones  of  the  finest  music,  the 
amazing  music  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  which  melody 
and  harmony  vie  with  each  other  as  equal  powers,  and  singing 
and  orchestration  have  achieved  incredible  perfection.  He 
here  saw  the  works  of  the  most  prodigal  painting — that  of  the 
French  school  of  to-day,  the  inheritor  of  Italy,  Spain,  and 
Flanders,  in  which  talent  has  become  so  common  that  our 
eyes  and  hearts,  weary  of  so  much  talent,  cry  out  loudly  for  a 
genius.  He  here  read  those  works  of  imagination,  those 
astounding  creations  of  modern  literature,  which  produce 
their  fullest  effect  on  a  fresh  young  heart.  In  short,  our 
grand  nineteenth  century  rose  before  him  in  all  its  magnifi- 
cence as  a  whole — its  criticism,  its  struggles  for  every  kind  of 
renovation,  its  vast  experiments,  almost  all  measured  by  the 
standard  of  the  giant  who  nursed  its  infancy  in  his  flag,  and 


BEATRIX.  83 

sang  it  hymns  to  an  accompaniment  of  the  terrible  bass  of 
cannon. 

Initiated  by  Felicite  into  all  this  grandeur,  which  perhaps 
escapes  the  ken  of  those  who  put  it  on  the  stage  and  are  its 
makers,  Calyste  satisfied  at  les  Touches  the  love  of  the  mar- 
velous that  is  so  strong  at  his  age,  and  that  guileless  admira- 
tion, the  first  love  of  a  growing  man,  which  is  so  wroth  with 
criticism.  It  is  so  natural  that  flame  should  fly  upward  !  He 
heard  the  light  Parisian  banter,  the  graceful  irony  which  re- 
vealed to  him  what  French  wit  should  be,  and  awoke  in  him 
a  thousand  ideas  that  had  been  kept  asleep  by  the  mild  torpor 
of  home  life.  To  him  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  was  the 
mother  of  his  intelligence,  a  mother  with  whom  he  might 
be  in  love  without  committing  a  crime.  She  was  so  kind  to 
him:  a  woman  is  always  adorably  kind  to  a  man  in  whom  she 
has  inspired  a  passion,  even  though  she  should  not  seem  to 
share  it. 

At  this  very  moment  Felicite  was  giving  him  music  lessons. 
To  him  the  spacious  rooms  on  the  first  floor,  looking  all  the 
larger  by  reason  of  the  skillful  arrangement  of  the  lawns  and 
shrubs  in  the  little  park  ;  the  staircase,  lined  with  masterpieces 
of  Italian  patience — carved  wood,  Venetian  and  Florentine 
mosaics,  bas-reliefs  in  ivory  and  marble,  curious  toys  made  to 
the  order  of  the  fairies  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  the  upper  rooms, 
so  cozy,  so  dainty,  so  voluptuously  artistic,  were  all  informed 
and  living  with  a  light,  a  spirit,  an  atmosphere,  that  wer& 
supernatural,  indefinable,  and  strange.  The  modern  world 
with  its  poetry  was  in  strong  contrast  to  the  solemn  patriarchal 
world  of  Guerande,  and  the  two  systems  here  were  face  to  face. 
On  one  hand  the  myriad  effects  of  art  ;  on  the  other  the  sim- 
plicity of  wild  Brittany.  No  one,  then,  need  ask  why  the 
poor  boy,  as  weary  as  his  mother  was  of  the  subtleties  of  mouche, 
always  felt  a  qualm  as  he  entered  this  house,  as  he  rang  the 
bell,  as  he  crossed  the  yard.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  these 
presentiments  cease  to  agitate  men  of  riper  growth,  inured  to 


84  BE  A  TRIX. 

the  mishaps  of  life,  whom  nothing  can  surprise,  and  who  are 
prepared  for  everything. 

As  he  went  in,  Calyste  heard  the  sound  of  the  piano;  he 
thought  that  Camille  Maupin  was  in  the  drawing-room ;  but 
on  entering  the  billiard-room  he  could  no  longer  hear  it. 
Camille  was  playing,  no  doubt,  on  the  little  upright  piano, 
brought  for  her  from  England  by  Conti,  which  stood  in  the 
little  drawing-room  above.  As  he  mounted  the  stairs,  where 
the  thick  carpet  completely  deadened  the  sound  of  footsteps, 
Calyste  went  more  and  more  slowly.  He  perceived  that  this 
music  was  something  extraordinary.  Felicite  was  playing  to 
herself  alone  ;  she  was  talking  to  herself.  Instead  of  going 
in,  the  young  man  sat  down  on  a  Gothic  settle  with  a  green 
velvet  cushion,  on  the  landing,  beneath  the  window,  which 
was  artistically  framed  in  carved  wood  stained  with  walnut- 
juice  and  varnished. 

Nothing  could  be  more  mysteriously  melancholy  than 
Camille's  improvisation  ;  it  might  have  been  the  cry  of  a  soul 
wailing  a  De  profundis  to  its  God  from  the  depths  of  the 
grave. 

The  young  lover  knew  it  for  the  prayer  of  love  in  despair,  the 
tenderness  of  resigned  grief,  the  sighing  of  controlled  anguish. 

Camille  was  amplifying,  varying,  and  changing  the  introduc- 
tion to  the  cavatina,  "  Gr&ce  pour  tot,  grdce  pour  mot,"  from 
the  fourth  act  of  "Robert  le  Diable."  Suddenly  she  began 
to  sing  the  scena  in  heartrending  tones,  and  broke  off.  Calyste 
went  in  and  saw  the  reason  of  this  abrupt  ending.  Poor 
Camille  Maupin,  beautiful  Felicite,  turned  to  him  without 
affectation,  her  face  bathed  in  tears,  took  out  her  handker- 
chief to  wipe  them  away,  and  said  simply — 

"  Good-morning." 

She  was  charming  in  her  morning  dress ;  on  her  head  was 
one  of  the  red  chenille  nets  at  that  time  in  fashion,  from 
which  the  shining  curls  of  her  black  hair  fell  on  her  neck. 
A  very  short  pelisse  formed  a  modern  Greek  tunic,  showing 


BEATRIX.  85 

below  it  cambric  trousers  with  embroidered   frills,  and  the 
prettiest  scarlet  and  gold  Turkish  slippers. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  asked  Calyste. 

"He  has  not  come  back,"  she  replied,  standing  up  at  the 
window  and  looking  out  over  the  sands,  the  creek,  and  the 
marshes. 

This  reply  accounted  for  her  costume.  Camille,  it  would 
seem,  was  expecting  Claud  Vignon,  and  she  was  fretted  as  a 
woman  who  had  wasted  her  pains.  A  man  of  thirty  would 
have  seen  this.     Calyste  only  saw  that  she  was  unhappy. 

"  You  are  anxious?  "  he  asked. 

"  Yes,"  she  replied,  with  a  melancholy  that  this  boy  could 
not  fathom. 

Calyste  was  hastily  leaving  the  room. 

"  Well,  where  are  you  going?  " 

"To  find  him." 

"  Dear  child  !  "  said  she,  taking  his  hand,  and  drawing 
him  to  her  with  one  of  those  tearful  looks  which  to  a  young 
soul  is  the  highest  reward.  "  Are  you  mad  ?  Where  do  you 
think  you  can  find  him  on  this  shore  ?  " 

"  I  will  find  him." 

"Your  mother  will  suffer  mortal  anguish.  Beside — stay. 
Come,  I  insist  upon  it,"  and  she  made  him  sit  down  on  the 
divan.  "  Do  not  break  your  heart  about  me.  These  tears 
that  you  see  are  the  tears  we  take  pleasure  in.  There  is  a 
faculty  in  women  which  men  have  not :  that  of  abandoning 
ourselves  to  our  nerves  by  indulging  our  feelings  to  excess. 
By  imagining  certain  situations,  and  giving  way  to  the  idea, 
we  work  ourselves  up  to  tears,  sometimes  into  a  serious  condi- 
tion and  real  illness.  A  woman's  fancies  are  not  the  sport 
of  the  mind  merely,  but  of  the  heart.  You  have  come  at  the 
right  moment ;  solitude  is  bad  for  me.  I  am  not  deluded  by 
the  wish  he  felt  to  go  without  me  to  study  le  Croisic  and  its 
rocks,  the  Bourg  de  Batz,  and  its  sands  and  salt-marshes.  I 
knew  he  would  spend  several  days  over  it  instead  of  one.     He 


86  BE  A  TRIX. 

wished  to  leave  us  two  alone  ;  he  is  jealous,  or  rather  he  is 
acting  jealousy.     You  are  young;  you  are  handsome." 

"Why  did  you  not  tell  me  sooner?  Must  I  come  no 
more?"  asked  Calyste,  failing  to  restrain  a  tear  that  rolled 
down  his  cheek,  and  touched  Felicite  deeply. 

"  You  are  an  angel !  "  she  exclaimed. 

Then  she  lightly  sang  Mathilde's  strain  "  Restez  "  out  of 
"  William  Tell,"  to  efface  all  gravity  from  this  grand  reply 
of  a  princess  to  her  subject. 

"He  thus  hopes,"  she  added,  "to  make  me  believe  in  a 
greater  love  for  me  than  he  feels.  He  knows  all  the  regard  I 
feel  for  him,"  she  went  on,  looking  narrowly  at  Calyste, 
"  but  he  is  perhaps  humiliated  to  find  himself  my  inferior  in 
this.  Possibly,  too,  he  has  formed  some  suspicions  of  you 
and  thinks  he  will  take  us  by  surprise.  But,  even  if  he  is 
guilty  of  nothing  worse  than  of  wishing  to  enjoy  the  delights 
of  this  expedition  in  the  wilds  without  me,  of  refusing  to  let 
me  share  his  excursions,  and  the  ideas  the  scenes  may  arouse 
in  him,  of  leaving  me  in  mortal  alarms — is  not  that  enough? 
His  great  brain  has  no  more  love  for  me  than  the  musician 
had,  the  wit,  the  soldier.  Sterne  is  right :  names  have  a 
meaning,  and  mine  is  the  bitterest  mockery.  I  shall  die 
without  ever  finding  in  a  man  such  love  as  I  have  in  my  heart, 
such  poetry  as  I  have  in  my  soul." 

She  sat  with  her  arms  hanging  limp,  her  head  thrown 
back  on  the  cushion,  her  eyes  dull  with  concentrated 
thought  and  fixed  on  a  flower  in  the  carpet.  The  sufferings 
of  superior  minds  are  mysteriously  grand  and  imposing ;  they 
reveal  immense  expanses  of  the  soul,  to  which  the  spectator's 
fancy  adds  yet  greater  breadth.  Such  souls  share  in  the  priv- 
ilege of  royalty,  whose  affections  cling  to  a  nation,  and  then 
strike  a  whole  world. 

"Why   did   you ?"  began    Calyste,    who    could    not 

finish   the   sentence.      Camille    Maupin's  beautiful,   burning 
hand  was  laid  on  his,  and  eloquently  stopped  him. 


BEATRIX.  87 

"  Nature  has  forsworn  her  laws  by  granting  me  five  or  six 
years  of  added  youth.  I  have  repelled  you  out  of  selfishness. 
Sooner  or  later  age  would  have  divided  us.  I  am  thirteen 
years  older  than  he  is,  and  that  is  quite  enough  !  " 

"You  will  still  be  beautiful  when  you  are  sixty  !  "  cried 
Calyste  heroically. 

"God  grant  it !  "  she  replied  with  a  smile.  "But,  my 
dear  child,  I  intend  to  love  him.  In  spite  of  his  insensibility, 
his  lack  of  imagination,  his  cowardly  indifference,  and  the 
envy  that  consumes  him,  I  believe  that  there  is  greatness 
under  those  husks ;   I  hope    to  galvanize  his   heart,    to  save 

him  from  himself,  to  attach  him  to  me Alas  !  I  have  the 

brain  to  see  clearly  while  my  heart  is  blind." 

She  was  appallingly  clear  as  to  herself.  She  could  suffer  and 
analyze  her  suffering,  as  Cuvier  and  Dupuytren  could  explain 
to  their  friends  the  fatal  progress  of  their  diseases  and  the 
steady  advance  of  death.  Camille  Maupin  knew  passion  as 
these  two  learned  men  knew  anatomy. 

"  I  came  here  on  purpose  to  form  an  opinion  about  him  -, 
he  is  already  bored.  He  misses  Paris,  as  I  told  him  ;  he  is 
homesick  for  something  to  criticise.  Here  there  is  no  author 
to  be  plucked,  no  system  to  be  undermined,  no  poet  to  be 
driven  to  despair ;  he  dares  not  here  rush  into  some  excess  in 
which  he  could  unburden  himself  of  the  weight  of  thought. 
Alas  !  my  love  perhaps  is  not  true  enough  to  refresh  his  brain. 
In  short,  I  cannot  intoxicate  him  !  To-night  you  and  he 
must  get  drunk  together  ;  I  shall  say  I  am  ailing,  and  stay 
in  my  room  ;  I  shall  know  if  I  am  mistaken." 

Calyste  turned  as  red  as  a  cherry,  red  from  his  chin  to  his 
hair,  and  his  ears  tingled  with  the  glow. 

"  Good  God  !  "  she  exclaimed,  "  and  here  am  I  depraving 
your  maiden  innocence  without  thinking  of  what  I  was  doing  ! 
Forgive  me,  Calyste.  When  you  love  you  will  know  that 
you  would  try  to  set  the  Seine  on  fire  to  give  the  least  pleasure 
to  'the  object  of  your  affections,'  as  the  fortune-tellers  say." 


88  BEATRIX. 

She  paused. 

"There  are  some  proud  and  logical  spirits,"  she  went  on, 
"who  at  a  certain  age  can  exclaim,  '  If  I  could  live  my  life 
again,  I  would  do  everything  the  same.'  Now  I — and  I  do 
not  think  myself  weak — I  say,  *  I  would  be  such  a  woman  as 
your  mother.' 

"  To  have  a  Calyste  of  my  own  !  What  happiness !  If  I 
had  the  greatest  fool  on  earth  for  a  husband,  I  should  have 
been  a  humble  and  submissive  wife.  And  yet  I  have  not 
sinned  against  society,  I  have  only  hurt  myself.  Alas  !  dear 
child,  a  woman  can  no  longer  go  into  society  unprotected 
excepting  in  what  is  called  a  primitive  state.  The  affections 
that  are  not  in  harmony  with  social  or  natural  laws,  the  affec- 
tions which  are  not  binding,  in  short,  evade  us.  If  I  am  to 
suffer  for  suffering's  sake,  I  might  as  well  be  useful.  What  do 
I  care  for  the  children  of  my  Faucombe  cousins,  who  are  no 
longer  Faucombes,  whom  I  have  not  seen  for  twenty  years, 
and  who  married  merchants  only  !  You  are  a  son  who  has 
cost  me  none  of  the  cares  of  motherhood  ;  I  shall  leave  you 
my  fortune  and  you  will  be  happy,  at  any  rate  so  far  as  that 
is  concerned,  by  my  act,  dear  jewel  of  beauty  and  sweetness, 
which  nothing  should  ever  change  or  fade  !  " 

As  she  spoke  these  words  in  a  deep  voice,  her  eyelids  fell 
that  he  should  not  read  her  eyes. 

"You  have  never  chosen  to  accept  anything  from  me," 
said  Calyste.     "  I  shall  restore  your  fortune  to  your  heirs." 

"  Child  !  "  said  Camille  in  her  rich  tones,  while  the  tears 
fell  down  her  beautiful  cheeks,  "  can  nothing  save  me  from 
myself?  " 

"You  have  a  story  to  tell  me,  and  a  letter  to "  the 

generous  boy  began,  to  divert  her  from  her  distress.  But  she 
interrupted  him  before  he  could  finish  the  sentence. 

"You  are  right.  I  must,  above  all  things,  keep  my  word. 
It  was  too  late  yesterday ;  but  we  shall  have  time  enough  to- 
day, it  would    seem,"  she  said  in  a  half-playful,  half-bitter 


BEATRIX.  89 

tone.  "  To  fulfill  my  promise,  I  will  sit  where  I  can  look 
down  the  road  to  the  cliffs." 

Calyste  placed  a  deep  Gothic  armchair,  where  she  could 
look  out  in  that  direction,  and  opened  the  window.  Camille 
Maupin,  who  shared  the  Oriental  tastes  of  the  more  illustrious 
writer  of  her  own  sex,  took  out  a  magnificent  Persian  narghileh 
that  an  ambassador  had  given  her;  she  filled  it  with  patchouli 
leaves,  cleaned  the  mouthpiece,  scented  the  quill  before  she 
inserted  it — it  would  serve  her  but  once— put  a  match  to  the 
dried  leaves,  placed  the  handsome  instrument  of  pleasure, 
with  its  long-necked  bowl  of  blue-and-gold  enamel,  at  no 
great  distance,  and  then  rang  for  tea. 

"  If  you  would  like  a  cigarette?  Ah  !  I  always  forget  that 
you  do  not  smoke.  Such  immaculateness  as  yours  is  rare  ! 
I  feel  as  though  only  the  fingers  of  an  Eve  fresh  from  the 
hand  of  God  ought  to  caress  the  downy  satin  of  your 
cheeks." 

Calyste  reddened  and  sat  down  on  a  stool ;  he  did  not 
observe  the  deep  emotion  that  made  Camille  blush. 

"The  person  from  whom  I  yesterday  received  this  letter, 
and  who  will  perhaps  be  here  to-morrow,  is  the  Marquise  de 
Rochefide,"  said  Felicite.  "After  getting  his  eldest  daughter 
married  to  a  Portuguese  grandee  who  had  settled  in  France, 
old  Rochefide,  whose  family  is  not  so  old  as  yours,  wanted 
to  connect  his  son  with  the  highest  nobility,  so  as  to  procure 
for  him  a  peerage  he  had  failed  to  obtain  for  himself.  The 
Comtesse  de  Montcornet  told  him  that  in  the  department  of 
the  Orne  there  was  a  certain  Mademoiselle  Beatrix  Maxi- 
milienne  Rose  de  Casteran,  the  youngest  daughter  of  the 
Marquis  de  Casteran,  who  wanted  to  get  his  two  daughters 
off  his  hands  without  any  money,  so  as  to  leave  his  whole 
fortune  to  his  son,  the  Comte  de  Casteran.  The  Casterans,  it 
would  seem,  are  descended  direct  from  Adam. 

"  Beatrix,  born  and  brought  up  in  the  chateau  of  Casteran,  at 
the  time  of  her  marriage,  in  1828,  was  twenty  years  of  age. 


90  BE  A  TRIX. 

She  was  remarkable  for  what  you  provincials  call  eccentricity, 
which  is  simply  a  superior  mind,  enthusiasm,  a  sense  of  the 
beautiful,  and  a  fervid  feeling  for  works  of  art.  Take  the  word 
of  a  poor  woman  who  has  trusted  herself  on  these  slopes,  there 
is  nothing  more  perilous  for  a  woman  ;  if  she  tries  them,  she 
arrives  where  you  see  me,  and  where  the  Marquise  is — in  an 
abyss.  Men  only  have  the  staff  that  can  be  a  support  on  the 
edge  of  those  precipices,  a  strength  which  we  lack,  or  which 
makes  us  monsters  if  we  have  it. 

"  Her  old  grandmother,  the  dowager  Marquise  de  Casteran, 
was  delighted  to  see  her  marry  a  man  whose  superior  she  would 
certainly  be  in  birth  and  mind.  The  Rochefides  did  every- 
thing extremely  well,  Beatrix  could  but  be  satisfied  ;  and  in 
the  same  way  Rochefide  had  every  reason  to  be  pleased  with 
the  Casterans,  who,  as  connected  with  the  Verneuils,  the 
d'Esgrignons,  and  the  Troisvilles,  obtained  the  peerage  for 
their  son-in-law  as  one  of  the  last  batch  made  by  Charles  X., 
though  it  was  annulled  by  a  decree  of  the  Revolution  of  July. 

"  Rochefide  is  a  fool ;  however,  he  began  by  having  a  son  ; 
and,  as  he  gave  his  wife  no  respite  and  almost  killed  her  with 
his  company,  she  soon  had  enough  of  him.  The  early  days  of 
married  life  are  a  rock  of  danger  for  small  minds  as  for  great 
passions.  Rochefide,  being  a  fool,  mistook  his  wife's  igno- 
rance for  coldness;  he  regarded  Beatrix  as  a  lymphatic  crea- 
ture— she  is  very  fair — and  thereupon  lulled  himself  into  per- 
fect security  and  led  a  bachelor  life,  trusting  to  the  Marquise's 
supposed  coldness,  her. pride,  her  haughtiness,  and  the  splen- 
dor of  a  style  of  living  which  surrounds  a  woman  in  Paris  with 
a  thousand  barriers.  When  you  go  there  you  will  understand 
what  I  mean.  Those  who  hoped  to  take  advantage  of  his  easy 
indifference  would  say  to  him,  'You  are  a  lucky  fellow.  You 
have  a  heartless  wife,  whose  passions  will  all  be  in  her  brain  ; 
she  is  content  with  shining;  her  fancies  are  purely  artistic ; 
her  jealousy  and  wishes  will  be  amply  satisfied  if  she  can  form 
a  Salon  where  all  the  wits  and  talents  meet ;  she  will  have 


BE  A  TRIX.  91 

debauches  of  music,  orgies  of  literature.'  And  the  husband 
took  in  all  this  nonsense  with  which  simpletons  are  stuffed  in 
Paris. 

"  At  the  same  time,  Rochefide  is  not  a  common  idiot ;  he 
has  as  much  vanity  and  pride  as  a  clever  man,  with  this  differ- 
ence, that  clever  men  assume  some  modesty  and  become  cats ; 
they  coax  to  be  coaxed  in  return ;  whereas  Rochefide  has  a 
fine  flourishing  conceit,  rosy  and  plump,  that  admires  itself  in 
public,  and  is  always  smiling,  tjis  vanity  rolls  in  the  stable 
and  feeds  noisily  from  the  manger,  tugging  out  the  hay.  He 
has  faults  such  as  are  known  only  to  those  who  are  in  a  posi- 
tion to  judge  him  intimately,  which  are  noticeable  only  in 
the  shade  and  mystery  of  private  life,  while  in  society  and  to 
society  the  man  seems  charming.  Rochfide  must  have  been 
intolerable  the  moment  he  fancied  that  his  hearth  and  home 
were  threatened ;  for  his  is  that  cunning  and  squalid  jealousy 
that  is  brutal  when  it  is  aroused,  cowardly  for  six  months,  and 
murderous  the  seventh.  He  thought  he  deceived  his  wife, 
and  he  feared  her — two  reasons  for  tyranny  if  the  day  should 
come  when  he  discerned  that  his  wife  was  so  merciful  as  to 
affect  indifference  to  his  infidelities. 

"I  have  analyzed  his  character  to  explain  Beatrix's  con- 
duct. The  Marquise  used  to  admire  me  greatly;  but  there  is  but 
one  step  from  admiration  to  jealousy.  I  have  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  Salons  of  Paris ;  she  wished  to  have  one  and  tried 
to  win  away  my  circle.  I  have  not  the  art  of  keeping  those 
who  wish  to  leave  me.  She  has  won  such  superficial  persons 
as  are  everybody's  friends  from  vacuity,  and  whose  object  is 
always  to  go  out  of  a  room  as  soon  as  they  have  come  in  ;  but 
she  has  not  had  time  to  make  a  circle.  At  that  time  I  sup- 
posed that  she  was  consumed  with  the  desire  of  any  kind  of 
celebrity.  Nevertheless,  she  had  some  greatness  of  soul,  a 
royal  pride,  ideas,  and  a  wonderful  gift  of  apprehending  and 
understanding  everything.  She  will  talk  of  metaphysics  and 
of  music,  of  theology  and  of  painting.     You  will  see  her  as  a 


92  BE  A  TRIX. 

woman  what  we  saw  her  as  a  bride  ;  but  she  is  not  without  a 
little  conceit;  she  gives  herself  too  much  the  air  of  knowing 
difficult  things — Chinese  or  Hebrew,  of  having  ideas  about 
hieroglyphics,  and  of  being  able  to  explain  the  papyrus  that 
wraps  a  mummy. 

"Beatrix  is  one  of  those  fair  women  by  whom  fair  Eve 
would  look  like  a  negress.  She  is  as  tall  and  straight  as  a 
taper  and  as  white  as  the  holy  wafer ;  she  has  a  long  pointed 
face  and  a  very  variable  complexion,  to-day  as  colorless  as 
cambric,  to-morrow  dull  and  mottled  under  the  skin  with  a 
myriad  tiny  specks,  as  though  the  blood  had  left  dust  there  in 
the  course  of  the  night.  Her  forehead  is  grand,  but  a  little 
too  bold ;  her  eyes,  pale  aquamarine-tinted,  floating  in  the 
white  cornea  under  colorless  eyebrows  and  indolent  lids. 
There  is  often  a  dark  circle  around  her  eves.  Her  nose, 
curved  to  a  quarter  of  a  circle,  is  pinched  at  the  nostrils  and 
full  of  refinement,  but  it  is  impertinent.  She  has  the  Austrian 
mouth,  the  upper  lip  thicker  than  the  lower,  which  has  a 
scornful  droop.  Her  pale  cheeks  only  flush  under  some  very 
strong  emotion.  Her  chin  is  rather  fat;  mine  is  not  thin; 
and  perhaps  I  ought  not  to  tell  you  that  women  with  a  fat 
chin  are  exacting  in  love  affairs.  She  has  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  figures  I  ever  saw ;  a  back  of  dazzling  whiteness, 
which  used  to  be  very  flat,  but  which  now,  I  am  told,  has 
filled  out  and  grown  dimpled  ;  but  the  bust  is  not  so  fine  as 
the  shoulders;  her  arms  are  still  thin.  However,  she  has  a 
mien  and  a  freedom  of  manner  which  redeem  all  her  defects 
and  throw  her  beauties  into  relief.  Nature  has  bestowed  on 
her  that  air,  as  of  a  princess,  which  can  never  be  acquired, 
which  becomes  her  and  at  once  reveals  the  woman  of  birth; 
it  is  in  harmony  with  the  slender  hips  of  exquisite  form,  with 
the  prettiest  foot  in  the  world,  and  the  abundant  angel-like 
hair,  resembling  waves  of  light,  such  as  Girodet's  brush  has  so 
often  painted. 

"Without  being  faultlessly  beautiful  or  pretty,  when  she 


BE  A  TR1X.  93 

chooses  she  can  make  an  indelible  impression.  She  has  only 
to  dress  in  cherry-colored  velvet,  with  lace  frillings,  and  red 
roses  in  her  hair,  to  be  divine.  If  on  any  pretext  Beatrix 
could  dress  in  the  costume  of  a  time  when  women  wore 
pointed  stomachers  laced  with  ribbon,  rising,  slender  and 
fragile-looking,  from  the  padded  fulness  of  brocade  skirts  set 
in  thick  deep  pleats;  when  their  heads  were  framed  in  starched 
ruffs,  and  their  arms  hidden  under  slashed  sleeves  with  lace 
ruffles,  out  of  which  the  hand  appeared  like  the  pistil  from  the 
cup  of  a  flower ;  when  their  hair  was  tossed  back  in  a  thou- 
sand little  curls  over  a  knot  held  up  by  a  network  of  jewels, 
Beatrix  would  appear  as  a  successful  rival  to  any  of  the  ideal 
beauties  you  may  see  in  that  array." 

Felicite  showed  Calyste  a  good  copy  of  Miens'  picture  in 
which  a  lady  in  white  satin  stands  singing  with  a  gentleman 
of  Brabant,  while  a  negro  pours  old  Spanish  wine  into  a  glass 
with  a  foot,  and  a  housekeeper  is  arranging  some  biscuits. 

"Fair  women,"  she  went  on,  "have  the  advantage  over  us 
dark  women  of  the  most  delightful  variety ;  you  may  be  fair 
in  a  hundred  ways,  but  there  is  only  one  way  of  being  dark. 
Fair  women  are  more  womanly  than  we  are ;  we  dark  French- 
women are  too  like  men.  Well,"  she  added,  "do  not  be 
falling  in  love  with  Beatrix  on  the  strength  of  the  portrait  I 
have  given  you,  exactly  like  some  prince  in  the  'Arabian 
Nights.'  Too  late  in  the  day,  my  dear  boy!  But  be  com- 
forted.    With  her  the  bones  are  for  the  first  comer." 

She  spoke  with  meaning;  the  admiration  expressed  in  the 
youth's  face  was  evidently  more  for  the  picture  than  for  the 
painter  whose  touch  had  missed  its  purpose. 

"In  spite  of  her  being  a  blonde,"  she  resumed,  "Beatrix 
has  not  the  delicacy  of  her  coloring ;  the  lines  are  severe,  she 
is  elegant  and  hard  ;  she  has  the  look  of  a  strictly  accurate 
drawing,  and  you  might  fancy  she  had  southern  fires  in  her 
soul.  She  is  a  flaming  angel,  slowly  drying  up.  Her  eyes 
look  thirsty.     Her  front  face  is  the  best ;  in  profile  her  face 


94  BEA  TRIX. 

looks  as  if  it  had  been  flattened  between  two  doors.  You 
will  see  if  I  am  wrong. 

"This  is  what  led  to  our  being  such  intimate  friends: 
For  three  years,  from  1828  to  1831,  Beatrix,  while  enjoying 
the  last  gayeties  of  the  Restoration,  wandering  through  draw- 
ing-rooms, going  to  court,  gracing  the  fancy-dress  balls  at  the 
Elysee  Bourbon,  was  judging  men,  things,  and  events  from 
the  heights  of  her  intellect.  Her  mind  was  fully  occupied. 
This  first  bewilderment  at  seeing  the  world  kept  her  heart 
dormant,  and  it  remained  torpid  under  the  first  startling 
experiences  of  marriage — a  baby — a  confinement,  and  all  the 
business  of  motherhood,  which  I  cannot  bear ;  I  am  not  a 
woman  so  far  as  that  is  concerned.  To  me  children  are  unen- 
durable ;  they  bring  a  thousand  sorrows  and  incessant  anxi- 
eties. I  must  say  that  I  regard  it  as  one  of  the  blessings  of 
modern  society  of  which  that  hypocrite  Jean-Jacques  deprived 
us,  that  we  were  free  to  be  or  not  to  be  mothers.  Though  I 
am  not  the  only  woman  that  thinks  this,  I  am  the  only  one  to 
say  it. 

"During  the  storm  of  1830  and  1831  Beatrix  went  to  her 
husband's  country  house,  where  she  was  as  much  bored  as  a 
saint  in  his  stall  in  paradise.  On  her  return  to  Paris,  the 
Marquise  thought,  and  perhaps  rightly,  that  the  Revolution, 
which  in  the  eyes  of  most  people  was  purely  political,  would 
be  a  moral  revolution  too.  The  world  to  which  she  belonged 
had  failed  to  reconstitute  itself  during  the  unlooked-for  fifteen 
years  of  triumph  under  the  Restoration,  so  it  must  crumble 
away  under  the  steady  battering  ram  of  the  middle  class. 
She  had  understood  Monsieur  Laine's  great  words,  '  Kings 
are  departing.'  This  opinion,  I  suspect,  was  not  without  its 
influence  on  her  conduct. 

"  She  sympathized  intellectually  with  the  new  doctrines 
which,  for  three  years  after  that  July,  swarmed  into  life  like 
flies  in  the  sunshine,  and  which  turned  many  women's  heads; 
but,  like  all  the  nobility,  though  she  thought  the  new  ideas 


BEATRIX.  95 

magnificent,  she  wished  to  save  the  nobility.  Finding  no 
opening  now  for  personal  superiority,  seeing  the  uppermost 
class  again  setting  up  the  speechless  opposition  it  had  already 
shown  to  Napoleon — which,  during  the  dominion  of  actions 
and  facts,  was  the  only  attitude  it  could  take,  whereas,  in  a 
time  of  moral  transition,  it  was  equivalent  to  retiring  from  the 
contest — she  preferred  a  happy  life  to  this  mute  antagonism. 

"When  we  began  to  breathe  a  little,  the  Marquise  met  at 
my  house  the  man  with  whom  I  had  thought  to  end  my  days 
— Gennaro  Conti,  the  great  composer,  of  Neapolitan  parent- 
age, but  born  at  Marseilles.  Conti  is  a  very  clever  fellow 
and  has  gifts  as  a  composer,  though  he  can  never  rise  to 
the  highest  rank.  If  we  had  not  Meyerbeer  and  Rossini,  he 
might  perhaps  have  passed  for  a  genius.  He  has  this  advan- 
tage over  them,  that  he  is  as  a  singer  what  Paganini  is  on  the 
violin,  Liszt  on  the  piano,  Taglioni  as  a  dancer — in  short, 
what  the  famous  Garat  was,  of  whom  he  reminds  those  who 
ever  heard  that  singer.  It  is  not  a  voice,  my  dear  boy,  it  is 
a  soul.  When  that  singing  answers  to  certain  ideas,  certain 
indescribable  moods  in  which  a  woman  sometimes  finds  herself, 
if  she  hears  Gennaro  she  is  lost.  The  Marquise  fell  madly  in 
love  with  him  and  won  him  from  me.  It  was  excessively 
provincial,  but  fair  warfare.  She  gained  my  esteem  and 
friendship  by  her  conduct  toward  me.  She  fancied  I  was  the 
woman  to  fight  for  my  possession  ;  she  could  not  tell  that  in 
my  eyes  the  most  ridiculous  thing  in  the  world  under  such 
circumstances  is  the  subject  of  the  contest.  She  came  to  see 
me.  The  woman,  proud  as  she  is,  was  so  much  in  love  that 
she  betrayed  her  secret  and  left  me  mistress  of  her  fate.  She 
was  quite  charming ;  in  my  eyes  she  remained  a  woman  and 
a  marquise. 

"  I  may  tell  you,  my  friend,  that  women  are  sometimes 
bad  ;  but  they  have  a  secret  greatness  which  men  will  never 
be  able  to  appreciate.  And  so,  as  I  may  wind  up  my  affairs 
as  a  woman  on  the  brink  of  old  age,  which  is  awaiting  me,  I 


§6  BE  A  TRIX. 

will  tell  you  that  I  had  been  faithful  to  Conti,  that  I  should 
have  continued  faithful  till  death,  and  that  nevertheless  I 
knew  him  thoroughly.  He  has  apparently  a  delightful  nature, 
at  bottom  he  is  detestable.  In  matters  of  feeling  he  is  a 
charlatan. 

"There  are  men,  like  Nathan,  of  whom  I  have  spoken  to 
you,  who  are  charlatans  on  the  surface  but  honest.  Such  men 
lie  to  themselves.  Perched  on  stilts,  they  fancy  that  they  are 
on  their  feet,  and  play  their  tricks  with  a  sort  of  innocence; 
their  vanity  is  in  their  blood  ;  they  are  born  actors,  swaggerers, 
grotesquely  funny  like  a  Chinese  jar ;  they  might  even  laugh 
at  themselves.  Their  personal  impulses  are  generous,  and, 
like  the  gaudiness  of  Murat's  royal  costume,  they  attract 
danger. 

"  But  Conti's  rascality  will  never  be  known  to  any  one  but 
his  mistress.  He  has  as  an  artist  that  famous  Italian  jealousy 
which  led  Carlone  to  assassinate  Piola  and  caused  Paesiello  a 
stiletto  thrust.  This  terrible  envy  is  hidden  beneath  the  most 
charming  good-fellowship.  Conti  has  not  the  courage  of  his 
vice;  he  smiles  at  Meyerbeer  and  pays  him  compliments  while 
he  longs  to  rend  him.  He  feels  himself  weak,  and  gives  him- 
self the  airs  of  force  ;  and  his  vanity  is  such  that  he  affects 
the  sentiments  furthest  from  his  heart.  He  assumes  to  be  an 
artist  inspired  direct  from  heaven.  To  him  Art  is  something 
sacred  and  holy.  He  is  a  fanatic  ;  he  is  sublime  in  his  fooling 
of  fashionable  folk ;  his  eloquence  seems  to  flow  from  the 
deepest  convictions.  He  is  a  seer,  a  demon,  a  god,  an  angel. 
In  short,  though  I  have  warned  you,  Calyste,  you  will  be  his 
dupe.  This  southerner,  this  seething  artist,  is  as  cold  as  a 
well-rope. 

"  You  listen  to  him ;  the  artist  is  a  missionary,  Art  is  a  re- 
ligion that  has  its  priesthood  and  must  have  its  martyrs. 
Once  started,  Gennaro  mounts  to  the  most  disheveled  pathos 
that  ever  a  German  philosopher  spouted  out  on  his  audience. 
You  admire   his  convictions — he   believes   in  nothing.     He 


BE  A  TRIX.  97 

carries  you  up  to  heaven  by  a  song  that  seems  to  be  some 
mysterious  fluid,  flowing  with  love  ;  he  gives  you  a  glance  of 
ecstasy  ;  but  he  keeps  an  eye  on  your  admiration ;  he  is  asking 
himself,  'Am  I  really  a  god  to  these  people?'  And  in  the 
same  instant  he  is  perhaps  saying  to  himself,  '  I  have  eaten  too 
much  macaroni.'  You  fancy  he  loves  you — he  hates  you ;  and 
you  do  not  know  why.  But  I  always  knew.  He  had  seen 
some  woman  the  day  before,  loved  her  for  a  whim,  insulted 
me  with  false  love,  with  hypocritical  kisses,  making  me  pay 
dearly  for  his  feigned  fidelity.  In  short,  he  is  insatiable  for 
applause;  he  shams  everything  and  trifles  with  everything; 
he  can  act  joy  as  well  as  grief,  and  he  succeeds  to  perfection. 
He  can  please,  he  is  loved,  he  can  get  admiration  whenever  he 
chooses. 

"  I  left  him  hating  his  voice  ;  he  owed  it  more  success  than 
he  could  get  from  his  talent  as  a  composer  ;  and  he  would 
rather  be  a  man  of  genius  like  Rossini  than  a  performer  as  fine 
as  Rubini.  I  had  been  so  foolish  as  to  attach  myself  to  him, 
and  I  would  have  decked  the  idol  to  the  last.  Conti,  like 
many  artists,  is  very  dainty  and  likes  his  ease  and  his  little 
enjoyments;  he  is  dandified,  elegant,  well  dressed;  well,  I 
humored  all  his  manias,  I  loved  that  weak  but  astute  character. 
I  was  envied,  and  I  sometimes  smiled  with  disdain.  I  re- 
spected his  courage  ;  he  is  brave,  and  bravery,  it  is  said,  is 
the  only  virtue  which  no  hypocrisy  can  simulate.  On  one 
occasion,  when  traveling,  I  saw  him  put  to  the  test;  he  was 
ready  to  risk  his  life — and  he  loves  it ;  but,  strange  to  say, 
in  Paris  I  have  known  him  guilty  of  what  I  call  mental  cow- 
ardice. 

"  My  dear  boy,  I  knew  all  this.  I  said  to  the  poor  Mar- 
quise, '  You  do  not  know  what  a  gulf  you  are  setting  foot  in  ; 
you  are  the  Perseus  of  a  hapless  Andromeda  ;  you  are  rescuing 
me  from  the  rock.  If  he  loves  you,  so  much  the  better ;  but 
I  doubt  it,  he  loves  no  one  but  himself.' 

"  Gennaro  was  in  the  seventh  heaven  of  pride.  I  was  no 
7 


98  BE  A  TRTX. 

marquise,  I  was  not  born  a  Casteran  ;  I  was  forgotten  in  a  day. 
I  allowed  myself  the  fierce  pleasure  of  studying  this  character 
to  its  depths.  Certain  of  what  the  end  would  be,  I  meant  to 
watch  Conti's  contortions.  My  poor  boy,  in  one  week  I  saw 
horrors  of  sentimentality,  hideous  manoeuvring  !  I  will  tell 
you  no  more;  you  will  see  the  man  here.  Only,  as  he  knows 
that  I  know  him,  he  hates  me  now.  If  he  could  safely  stab 
me  I  should  not  be  alive  for  two  seconds. 

"I  have  never  said  a  word  of  this  to  Beatrix.  Gennaro's 
last  and  constant  insult  is  that  he  believes  me  capable  of  com- 
municating my  painful  knowledge  to  the  Marquise.  He  has 
become  restless  and  absent-minded,  for  he  cannot  believe  in 
good  feeling  in  any  one.  He  still  performs  for  my  benefit 
the  part  of  a  man  grieved  to  have  deserted  me.  You  will 
find  him  full  of  the  most  penetrating  cordiality  ;  he  will 
wheedle,  he  will  be  chivalrous.  -To  him  every  woman  is  a 
Madonna !  .  You  have  to  live  with  him  for  some  time  before 
you  detect  the  secret  of  that  false  frankness  or  know  the 
stiletto  prick  of  his  humbug.  His  air  of  conviction  would 
take  in  God.  And  so  you  will  be  enmeshed  by  his  feline 
blandishments,  and  will  never  conceive  of  the  deep  and  rapid 
arithmetic  of  his  inmost  rnind.     Let  him  be. 

"I  carried  indifference  to  the  point  of  receiving  them  to- 
gether at  my  house.  The  consequence  of  this  was  that  the 
most  suspicious  world  on  earth,  the  world  of  Paris,  knew 
nothing  of  the  intrigue.  Though  Gennaro  was  drunk  with 
pride,  he  wanted,  no  doubt,  to  pose  before  Beatrix  ;  his  dis- 
simulation was  consummate.  He  surprised  me ;  I  had  ex- 
pected to  find  that  he  insisted  on  a  stage-effect.  It  was  she 
who  compromised  herself,  after  a  year  of  happiness  under  all 
the  vicissitudes  and  risks  of  Parisian  existence. 

"  She  had  not  seen  Gennaro  for  some  clays  and  I  had  in- 
vited him  to  dine  with  me,  as  she  was  coming  in  the  evening. 
Rochefide  had  no  suspicions  ;  but  Beatrix  knew  her  husband 
so  well,  that,  as  she  often  told  me,  she  would  have  preferred 


BE  A  TRIX.  99 

the  worst  poverty  to  the  wretched  life  that  awaited  her  in  the 
event  of  that  man  ever  having  a  right  to  scorn  or  to  torment 
her.  I  had  chosen  the  evening  when  our  friend  the  Com- 
tesse  de  Montcornet  was  at  home.  After  seeing  her  husband 
served  with  his  coffee,  Beatrix  left  the  drawing-room  to 
dress,  though  she  was  not  in  the  habit  of  getting  ready  so 
early. 

"  'Your  hairdresser  is  not  here  yet,'  said  Rochefide,  when 
he  heard  why  she  was  going. 

"  'Therese  can  do  my  hair,'  she  replied. 

"'Why,  where  are  you  going?  You  cannot  go  to  Mad- 
ame de  Montcornet's  at  eight  o'clock.' 

"  '  No,'  said  she,  '  but  I  shall  hear  the  first  act  at  the  Italian 
opera.' 

"  The  catechising  bailiff  in  Voltaire's  '  Huron  '  is  a  silent 
man  by  comparison  with  an  idle  husband.  Beatrix  fled,  to 
be  no  farther  questioned,  and  did  not  hear  her  husband  say, 
'Very  well ;  we  will  go  together.' 

"  He  did  not  do  it  on  purpose ;  he  had  no  reason  to 
suspect  his  wife  ;  she  was  allowed  so  much  liberty  !  He  tried 
never  to  fetter  her  in  any  way ;  he  prided  himself  on  it. 
And,  indeed,  her  conduct  did  not  offer  the  smallest  hold  for  the 
strictest  critic.  The  Marquis  was  going  who  knows  where — 
to  see  his  mistress  perhaps.  He  had  dressed  before  dinner; 
he  had  only  to  take  up  his  hat  and  gloves  when  he  heard  his 
wife's  carriage  draw  up  under  the  awning  of  the  steps  in  the 
courtyard.  He  went  to  her  room  and  found  her  ready,  but 
amazed  at  seeing  him. 

"  '  Where  are  you  going?  '  said  she. 

"  '  Did  I  not  tell  you  I  would  go  with  you  to  the  opera? ' 

"  The  Marquise  controlled  the  outward  expression  of  in- 
tense annoyance ;  but  her  cheeks  turned  as  scarlet  as  though 
she  had  used  rouge. 

"  'Well,  come  then,'  she  replied. 

"Rochefide   followed  her,   without  heeding  the  agitation 


100  BEATRIX. 

betrayed  by  her  voice ;  she  was  burning  with  the  most  violent 
suppressed  rage. 

"  '  To  the  opera,'  said  her  husband. 

"  '  No,'  cried  Beatrix,  '  to  Mademoiselle  des  Touches'. 
I  have  a  word  to  say  to  her,'  she  added  when  the  door  was 
shut. 

"  The  carriage  started. 

"  '  But  if  you  like,'  Beatrix  added,  '  I  can  take  you  first  to 
the  opera  and  go  to  her  afterward.' 

"  '  No,'  said  the  Marquis;  f  if  you  have  only  a  few  words 
to  say  to  her,  I  will  wait  in  the  carriage ;  it  is  only  half-past 
seven.' 

"  If  Beatrix  had  said  to  her  husband,  '  Go  to  the  opera  and 
leave  me  alone,'  he  would  have  obeyed  her  quite  calmly. 
Like  every  clever  woman,  knowing  herself  guilty,  she  was 
afraid  of  rousing  his  suspicions,  and  resigned  herself.  Thus, 
when  she  gave  up  the  opera  to  come  to  my  house,  her  husband 
accompanied  her.  She  came  in  scarlet  with  rage  and  impa- 
tience. She  walked  straight  up  to  me,  and  said  in  a  low 
voice,  with  the  calmest  manner  in  the  world — 

"  '  My  dear  Felicite,  I  shall  start  for  Italy  to-morrow  even- 
ing with  Conti ;  beg  him  to  make  his  arrangements,  and  wait 
for  me  here  with  a  carriage  and  passport.' 

"Then  she  left  with  her  husband.  Violent  passions  insist 
on  liberty  at  any  cost.  Beatrix  had  for  a  year  been  suffering 
from  want  of  freedom  and  the  rarity  of  their  meetings,  for 
she  considered  herself  one  with  Gennaro.  So  nothing  could 
surprise  me.  In  her  place,  with  my  temper,  I  should  have 
acted  as  she  did.  Conti's  happiness  broke  my  heart;  only 
his  vanity  was  engaged  in  this  matter. 

"  '  That  is  indeed  being  loved  ! '  he  exclaimed,  in  the 
midst  of  his  transports.  '  How  few  women  would  thus  forego 
their  whole  life,  their  fortune,  their  reputation  ! ' 

V  '  Oh  yes,  she  loves  you,'  said  I;  '  but  you  do  not  love 
her ! ' 


AT    THE    UNEXPECTED    SIGHT    CALYSTE   AND    FEL1CITE    SAT 
SILENT    FOR    A    MINUTE. 


BE  A  TRIX.  101 

"He  flew  into  a  fury  and  made  a  scene  ;  he  harangued,  he 
scolded,  he  described  his  passion,  saying  he  had  never  thought 
it  possible  that  he  could  love  so  much.  I  was  immovably 
cool,  and  lent  him  the  money  he  might  want  for  the  journey 
that  had  taken  him  by  surprise. 

"  Beatrix  wrote  a  letter  to  her  husband  and  set  out  for  Italy 
the  next  evening.  She  stayed  there  two  years  ;  she  wrote  to 
me  several  times.  Her  letters  are  bewitchingly  friendly ;  the 
poor  child  clings  to  me  as  the  only  woman  that  understands 
her.  She  tells  me  she  adores  me.  Want  of  money  compelled 
Gennaro  to  write  an  opera ;  he  did  not  find  in  Italy  the 
pecuniary  resources  open  to  a  composer  in  Paris.  Here  is 
her  last  letter ;  you  can  understand  it  now  if,  at  your  age,  you 
can  analyze  the  emotions  of  the  heart,"  she  added,  handing 
him  the  letter. 

At  this  moment  Claud  Vignon  came  in.  At  the  unexpected 
sight  Calyste  and  Felicite  sat  silent  for  a  minute,  she  from 
surprise,  he  from  vague  dissatisfaction.  Claud's  vast,  high, 
and  wide  forehead,  bald  at  seven-and-thirty,  was  dark  with 
clouds.  His  firm,  judicious  lips  expressed  cold  irony.  Claud 
Vignon  is  an  imposing  person,  in  spite  of  the  changes  in  a 
face  that  was  splendid  and  is  now  grown  livid.  From  the 
age  of  eighteen  to  five-and-twenty  he  had  a  strong  likeness  to 
the  divine  young  Raphael ;  but  his  nose,  the  human  feature 
which  most  readily  alters,  has  grown  sharp ;  his  countenance 
has,  as  it  were,  sunk  under  mysterious  hollows,  the  outlines 
have  grown  puffy,  and  with  a  bad  color ;  leaden  grays  pre- 
dominate in  the  worn  complexion,  though  no  one  knows  what 
the  fatigues  can  be  of  a  young  man,  aged  perhaps  by  crushing 
loneliness,  and  an  abuse  of  keen  discernment.  He  is  always 
examining  other  men's  minds,  without  object  or  system;  the 
pickaxe  of  his  criticism  is  always  destroying,  and  never  con- 
structing anything.  His  weariness  is  that  of  the  laborer,  not 
of  the  architect. 


102  BE  A  TRIX. 

His  eyes,  light  blue  and  once  bright,  are  dimmed  with 
unconfessed  suffering  or  clouded  by  sullen  sadness.  Dissipa- 
tion has  darkened  the  eyelids  beneath  the  brows ;  the  temples 
have  lost  their  smoothness.  The  chin,  most  nobly  moulded, 
has  grown  double  without  dignity.  His  voice,  never  very 
sonorous,  has  grown  thin  ;  it  is  not  hoarse,  not  husky,  but 
something  between  the  two.  The  inscrutability  of  this  fine 
face,  the  fixity  of  that  gaze,  cover  an  irresolution  and  weak- 
ness that  are  betrayed  in  the  shrewd  and  ironical  smile.  This 
weakness  affects  his  actions,  but  not  his  mind;  the  stamp  of 
encyclopaedic  intellect  is  on  that  brow  and  in  the  habit  of 
that  face,  at  once  childlike  and  lofty. 

One  detail  may  help  to  explain  the  eccentricities  of  this 
character.  The  man  is  tall  and  already  somewhat  bent,  like 
all  who  bear  a  world  of  ideas.  These  tall,  long  frames  have 
never  been  remarkable  for  tenacious  energy,  for  creative 
activity.  Charlemagne,  Narses,  Belisarius,  and  Constantine 
have  been,  in  this  particular,  very  noteworthy  exceptions. 
Claud  Vignon,  no  doubt,  suggests  mysteries  to  be  solved.  In 
the  first  place,  he  is  at  once  very  simple  and  very  deep. 
Though  he  rushes  into  excess  with  the  readiness  of  a  court- 
esan, his  mind  remains  unclouded.  The  intellect  which  can 
criticise  art,  science,  literature,  and  politics  is  inadequate  to 
control  his  outer  life.  Claud  contemplates  himself  in  the 
wide  extent  of  his  intellectual  realm,  and  gives  up  the  form 
of  things  with  Diogenes-like  indifference.  Content  with 
seeing  into  everything,  understanding  everything,  he  scorns 
material  details ;  but,  being  beset  with  hesitancy  as  soon  as 
creation  is  needed,  he  sees  obstacles  without  being  carried 
away  by  beauties,  and,  by  dint  of  discussing  means,  he  sits, 
his  hands  hanging  idle,  producing  no  results.  Intellectually 
he  is  a  Turk  in  whom  meditation  induces  sleep.  Criticism  is 
his  opium,  and  his  harem  of  books  has  disgusted  him  with 
any  work  he  might  do. 

He  is  equally  indifferent  to  the  smallest  and  to  the  greatest 


BEATRIX.  103 

things,  and  is  compelled  by  the  mere  weight  of  his  brain  to 
throw  himself  into  debauchery  to  abdicate  for  a  little  while 
the  irresistible  power  of  his  omnipotent  analysis.  He  is  too 
much  absorbed  by  the  seamy  side  of  genius,  and  you  may 
now  conceive  that  Camille  Maupin  should  try  to  show  him 
the  right  side. 

The  task  was  a  fascinating  one.  Claud  Vignon  believed 
himself  no  less  great  as  a  politician  than  he  was  as  a  writer; 
but  this  Machiavelli  of  private  life  laughs  in  his  sleeve  at 
ambitious  persons,  he  knows  all  he  can  ever  know,  he  instinc- 
tively measures  his  future  life  by  his  faculties,  he  sees  himself 
great,  he  looks  obstacles  in  the  face,  perceives  the  folly  of  par- 
venus, takes  fright  or  is  disgusted,  and  lets  the  time  slip  by 
without  doing  anything.  Like  Etienne  Lousteau,  the  feuille- 
ton  writer;  like  Nathan,  the  famous  dramatic  author;  like 
Blondet,  another  journalist,  he  was  born  in  the  middle  class 
to  which  we  owe  most  of  our  great  writers. 

"Which  way  did  you  come?"  said  Mademoiselle  des 
Touches,  coloring  with  pleasure  or  surprise. 

"In  at  the  door,"  replied  Claud  Vignon  drily. 

"Well,"  she  replied,  with  a  shrug,  "I  know  you  are  not  a 
man  to  come  in  at  the  window." 

"  Scaling  a  balcony  is  a  sort  of  cross  of  honor  for  the 
beloved  fair." 

"Enough  !  "  said  Felicite. 

"  I  am  in  the  way  ?  "  said  Claud  Vignon. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  guileless  Calyste,  "this  letter " 

"Keep  it;  I  ask  no  questions.  At  our  age  such  things 
need  no  words,"  said  he,  in  a  satirical  tone,  interrupting 
Calyste. 

"But,  indeed,  monsieur "  Calyste  began  indignantly. 

"Be  calm,  young  man;  my  indulgence  for  feelings  is 
boundless." 

"My  dear  Calyste,"  said  Camille,  anxious  to  speak. 

"  Dear?"  said  Vignon,  interrupting  her. 


104  BEATRIX. 

"Claud  is  jesting,"  Camille  went  on,  addressing  Calyste ; 
"  and  he  is  wrong — with  you  who  know  nothing  of  Paris  and 
its 'chaff.'" 

"I  had  no  idea  that  I  was  funny,"  said  Vignon  very 
gravely. 

"  By  what  road  did  you  come  ?  For  two  hours  I  have 
never  ceased  looking  out  toward  le  Croisic." 

"You  were  not  incessantly  looking,"  replied  Vignon. 

"You  are  intolerable  with  your  banter." 

"Banter!     I?" 

Calyste  rose. 

"You  are  not  so  badly  off  here  that  you  need  leave,"  said 
Vignon. 

"On  the  contrary,"  said  the  indignant  youth,  to  whom 
Camille  gave  her  hand,  which  he  kissed  instead  of  merely 
taking  it,  and  left  on  it  a  scalding  tear. 

"  I  wish  I  were  that  little  young  man,"  said  the  critic,  seat- 
ing himself,  and  taking  the  end  of  the  hookah.  "  How  he 
will  love  !  " 

"  Too  much,  for  then  he  will  not  be  loved,"  said  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches.  "  Madame  de  Rochefide  is  coming 
here." 

"  Good  !  "  said  Claud  \  "  and  with  Conti  ?  " 

"  She  will  stay  here  alone,  but  he  is  bringing  her." 

"  Have  they  quarreled  ?  " 

"No." 

"  Play  me  a  sonata  by  Beethoven  ;  I  know  nothing  of  the 
music  he  has  written  for  the  piano." 

Claud  filled  the  bowl  of  the  hookah  with  tobacco,  watching 
Camille  more  closely  than  she  knew ;  a  hideous  idea  possessed 
him  ;  he  fancied  that  a  straightforward  woman  believed  she 
had  duped  him.     The  situation  was  a  new  one. 

Calyste  as  he  went  away  was  thinking  neither  of  Beatrix  de 
Rochefide  nor  her  letter ;  he  was  furious  with  Claud  Vignon, 


BE  A  TRIX.  105 

full  of  wrath  at  what  he  thought  want  of  delicacy,  and  of  pity 
for  poor  Felicite.  How  could  a  man  be  loved  by  that  perfect 
woman  and  not  worship  her  on  his  knees,  not  trust  her  on  the 
faith  of  a  look  or  a  smile  ?  After  being  the  privileged  spec- 
tator of  the  suffering  Felicite  had  endured  while  waiting,  he 
felt  an  impulse  to  rend  that  pale,  cold  spectre.  He  knew 
nothing  himself,  as  Felicite  had  told  him,  of  the  sort  of  decep- 
tive witticisms  in  which  the  satirists  of  the  press  excel.  To 
him  love  was  a  human  form  of  religion. 

On  seeing  him  cross  the  courtyard,  his  mother  could  not 
restrain  a  joyful  exclamation,  and  old  Mademoiselle  du  Guenic 
whistled  for  Mariotte. 

"  Mariotte,  here  is  the  child  ;  give  us  the  hibine." 

"I  saw  him,  mademoiselle,"  replied  the  cook. 

His  mother,  a  little  distressed  by  the  melancholy  that  sat 
on  Calyste's  brow,  never  suspecting  that  it  was  caused  by  what 
he  thought  Vignon's  bad  treatment  of  Felicite,  took  up  her 
worsted  work.  The  old  aunt  pulled  out  her  knitting.  The 
Baron  gave  up  his  easy-chair  to  his  son  and  walked  up  and 
down  the  room  as  if  to  unstiffen  his  legs  before  taking  a  turn 
in  the  garden.  No  Flemish  or  Dutch  picture  represents  an 
interior  of  richer  tone  or  furnished  with  more  happily  suitable 
figures.  The  handsome  youth,  dressed  in  black  velvet,  the 
mother,  still  so  handsome,  and  the  two  old  folk,  in  the  setting 
of  ancient  paneling,  were  the  expression  of  the  most  touching 
domestic  harmony. 

Fanny  longed  to  question  Calyste,  but  he  had  taken  Beatrix's 
letter  out  of  his  pocket — the  letter  which  was,  perhaps,  to  de- 
stroy all  the  happiness  this  noble  family  enjoyed.  As  he  un- 
folded it,  Calyste's  lively  imagination  called  up  the  Marquise 
dressed  as  Camille  Maupin  had  fantastically  described  her. 


106  BEATRIX. 

Front  Beatrix  to  Felicite. 

"  Genoa,  July  2d. 

"  I  have  not  written  to  you,  my  dear  friend,  since  our  stay 
at  Florence,  but  Venice  and  Rome  took  up  all  tny  time ; 
and  happiness,  as  you  know,  fills  a  large  place  in  life.  We 
are  neither  of  us  likely  to  take  strict  account  of  a  letter  more 
or  less.  I  am  a  little  tired  ;  I  insisted  on  seeing  everything, 
and  to  a  mind  not  easily  satiated  the  repetition  of  pleasures 
brings  fatigue.  Our  friend  had  great  triumphs  at  the  Scala, 
at  the  Fenice,  and  these  last  three  days  at  the  San  Carlo. 
Three  Italian  operas  in  two  years  !  You  cannot  say  that  love 
has  made  him  idle. 

"  We  have  been  warmly  welcomed  everywhere,  but  I  should 
have  preferred  silence  and  solitude.  Is  not  that  the  only 
mode  of  life  that  suits  a  woman  in  direct  antagonism  with  the 
world?  This  was  what  I  had  expected.  Love,  my  dear,  is  a 
more  exacting  master  than  marriage ;  but  it  is  sweet  to  serve 
him.  After  having  played  at  love  all  my  life,  I  did  not  know 
that  I  must  see  the  world  again,  even  in  glimpses,  and  the  atten- 
tions paid  me  on  all  hands  were  so  many  wounds.  I  was  no 
longer  on  an  equal  footing  with  women  of  the  highest  type. 
The  more  kindly  I  was  treated,  the  more  was  my  inferiority 
marked.  Gennaro  did  not  understand  these  subtleties,  but  he 
was  so  happy  that  I  should  have  been  graceless  if  I  had  not 
sacrificed  such  petty  vanities  to  a  thing  so  splendid  as  an 
artist's  life. 

"We  live  only  by  love,  while  men  live  by  love  and  action 
— otherwise  they  would  not  be  men.  There  are,  however, 
immense  disadvantages  to  a  woman  in  the  position  in  which 
I  have  placed  myself;  and  you  have  avoided  them.  You 
have  remained  great  in  the  face  of  the  world  which  had  no 
rights  over  you  ;  you  have  perfect  liberty,  and  I  have  lost 
mine.  I  am  speaking  only  with  reference  to  concerns  of  the 
heart,  and  not  to  social  matters,  which  I  have  wholly  sacri- 


BEATRIX.  107 

flced.  You  might  be  vain  and  willful,  you  might  have  all  the 
graces  of  a  woman  in  love,  who  can  give  or  refuse  anything  as 
she  chooses ;  you  had  preserved  the  privilege  of  being  capri- 
cious, even  in  the  interest  of  your  affection  and  of  the  man 
you  might  like.  In  short,  you,  even  now,  have  still  your  own 
sanction  ;  I  have  not  the  freedom  of  feeling  which,  as  I  think, 
it  is  always  delightful  to  assert  in  love,  even  when  the  passion 
is  an  eternal  one.  I  have  not  the  right  to  quarrel  in  jest, 
which  we  women  so  highly  and  so  rightly  prize  :  is  it  not  the 
line  by  which  we  sound  the  heart  ?  I  dare  not  threaten,  I 
must  rely  for  attractiveness  on  infinite  docility  and  sweetness, 
I  must  be  impressive  through  the  immenseness  of  my  love ;  I 
would  rather  die  than  give  up  Gennaro,  for  the  holiness  of  my 
passion  is  its  only  plea  for  pardon. 

"  I  did  not  hesitate  between  my  social  dignity  and  my  own 
little  dignity  —  a  secret  between  me  and  my  conscience. 
Though  I  have  fits  of  melancholy,  like  the  clouds  which  float 
across  the  clearest  sky,  to  which  we  women  like  to  give  way, 
I  silence  them  at  once;  they  would  look  like  regret.  Dear 
me  !  I  so  fully  understood  the  extent  of  my  debt  to  him  that 
I  have  equipped  myself  with  unlimited  indulgence;  but 
hitherto  Gennaro  has  not  aroused  my  sensitive  jealousy.  In- 
deed, I  cannot  see  how  my  dear  great  genius  can  do  wrong. 
I  am,  my  dear,  rather  like  the  devotees  who  argue  with  their 
God,  for  is  it  not  to  you  that  I  owe  my  happiness?  And  you 
cannot  doubt  that  I  have  often  thought  of  you. 

"At  last  I  have  seen  Italy  !  As  you  saw  it,  as  it  ought  to 
be  seen,  illuminated  to  the  soul  by  love,  as  it  is  by  its  glorious 
sun  and  its  masterpieces  of  art.  I  pity  those  who  are  inces- 
santly fired  by  the  admiration  it  calls  for  at  every  step  when 
they  have  not  a  hand  to  clasp,  a  heart  into  which  they  may 
pour  the  overflow  of  emotions  which  then  subside  as  they 
grow  deeper.  These  two  years  are  to  me  all  my  life,  and  my 
memory  will  have  reaped  a  rich  harvest.  Did  you  not,  as  I 
did,   dream  of  settling  at  Chiavari,  of  buying  a   palace   at 


108  BE  A  TRIX. 

Venice,  a  villa  at  Sorrento,  a  house  at  Florence  ?  Do  not  all 
women  who  love  shun  the  world  ?  And  I,  for  ever  an  out- 
cast, could  I  help  longing  to  bury  myself  in  a  lovely  land- 
scape, in  a  heap  of  flowers,  looking  out  on  the  pretty  sea,  or 
a  valley  as  good  as  the  sea,  like  the  valley  you  look  on  from 
Fiesole  ? 

"  But,  alas,  we  are  poor  artists,  and  want  of  money  is  drag- 
ging the  wanderers  back  to  Paris  again.  Gennaro  cannot 
bear  me  to  feel  that  I  have  left  all  my  luxury,  and  he  is 
bringing  a  new  work,  a  grand  opera,  to  be  rehearsed  in  Paris. 
Even  at  the  cost  of  my  love,  I  cannot  bear  to  meet  one  of 
those  looks  from  a  woman  or  a  man  which  would  make  me 
feel  murderous.  Yes !  for  I  could  hack  any  one  to  pieces 
who  should  condescend  to  pity  me,  should  offer  me  the  pro- 
tection of  patronage — like  that  enchanting  Chateauneuf  who, 
in  the  time  of  Henri  III.,  I  think,  spurred  her  horse  to  trample 
down  the  Provost  of  Paris  for  some  such  offense. 

"  So  I  am  writing  to  tell  you  that  without  delay  I  shall 
arrive  to  join  you  at  les  Touches,  and  wait  for  our  Gennaro 
in  that  quiet  spot.  You  see  how  bold  I  am  with  my  bene- 
factress and  sister.  Still,  the  magnitude  of  the  obligation 
will  not  betray  my  heart,  like  some  others,  into  base  ingraU 
itude. 

"You  have  told  me  so  much  about  the  difficulties  of  the 
journey  that  I  shall  try  to  reach  le  Croisic  by  sea.  This  idea 
occurred  to  me  on  hearing  that  there  was  here  a  little  Danish 
vessel,  loaded  with  marble,  which  will  put  in  at  le  Croisic 
to  take  up  salt  on  its  way  back  to  the  Baltic.  By  this  voyage 
I  shall  avoid  the  fatigue  and  expense  of  traveling  by  post.  I 
know  you  are  not  alone,  and  I  am  glad  of  it ;  I  had  some 
remorse  in  the  midst  of  my  happiness.  You  are  the  only 
person  with  whom  I  could  bear  to  be  alone  without  Conti. 
Will  it  not  be  a  pleasure  to  you,  too,  to  have  a  woman  with 
you  who  will  understand  your  happiness  and  not  be  jealous 
of  it? 


BEATRIX.  109 

"Well,  till  our  meeting  !  The  wind  is  fair,  and  I  am  off, 
sending  you  a  kiss." 

"Well,  well,  she  too  knows  how  to  love  !  "  said  Calyste  to 
himself,  folding  up  the  letter,  with  a  sad  expression. 

This  sadness  flashed  on  his  mother's  heart  like  a  gleam 
lighting  up  an  abyss.  The  Baron  had  just  left  the  room. 
Fanny  bolted  the  door  to  the  turret,  and  returned  to  lean 
over  the  back  of  the  chair  in  which  her  boy  was  sitting,  as 
Dido's  sister  bends  over  her  in  Guerin's  picture.  She  kissed 
his  forehead  and  said — 

"  What  is  the  matter,  my  child  ?  what  makes  you  unhappy? 
You  promised  to  account  to  me  for  your  constant  visits  to  les 
Touches ;  I  ought  to  bless  its  mistress,  you  say?  " 

"Yes,  indeed,"  he  replied.  "She,  my  dear  mother,  has 
shown  me  all  the  defects  of  my  education  in  these  times, 
when  men  of  noble  birth  must  acquire  personal  merit  if  they 
are  to  restore  their  names  to  life  again.  I  was  as  remote 
from  my  day  as  Guerande  is  from  Paris.  She  has  been,  in  a 
way,  the  mother  of  my  intelligence." 

"Not  for  that  can  I  bless  her!"  said  the  Baroness,  her 
eyes  filling  with  tears. 

"Mother,"  cried  Calyste,  on  whose  forehead  the  hot  tears 
fell,  drops  of  heartbroken  motherhood,  "  mother,  do  not  cry. 
Just  now,  when,  to  do  her  a  pleasure,  I  proposed  scouring 
the  coast  from  the  custom-house  hut  to  the  Bourg  de  Batz, 
she  said  to  me,  '  How  anxious  your  mother  would  be  !  '  " 

"  She  said  so  !    Then  I  can  forgive  her  much,"  said  Fanny. 

"  Felicite  wishes  me  well,"  replied  Calyste,  "and  she  often 
checks  herself  from  saying  some  of  those  hasty  and  doubtful 
things  which  artists  let  fall,  so  as  not  to  shake  my  faith — 
knowing  that  it  is  not  immovable.  She  has  told  me  of  the 
life  led  in  Paris  by  youths  of  the  highest  rank,  going  from 
their  country  homes  as  I  might  from  mine,  leaving  their 
family  without  any  fortune,  and  making  great  wealth  by  the 


110  BE  A  TRIX. 

force  of  their  will  and  their  intelligence.  I  can  do  what  the 
Baron  de  Rastignac  has  done,  and  he  is  in  the  Ministry. 
She  gives  me  lessons  on  the  piano,  she  teaches  me  Italian, 
she  has  let  me  into  a  thousand  social  secrets  of  which  no  one 
has  an  inkling  at  Guerande.  She  could  not  give  me  the 
treasures  of  her  love ;  she  gives  me  those  of  her  vast  intellect, 
her  wit,  her  genius.  She  does  not  choose  to  be  a  mere  pleas- 
ure, but  a  light  to  me ;  she  offends  none  of  my  creeds ;  she 
believes  in  the  nobility,  she  loves  Brittany " 

"  She  has  changed  our  Calyste,"  said  the  old  blind  woman, 
interrupting  him,  "for  I  understand  nothing  of  this  talk. 
You  have  a  fine  old  house  over  your  head,  nephew,  old'  rela- 
tions who  worship  you,  good  old  servants  ;  you  can  marry  a 
good  little  Bretonne,  a  pious  and  well-bred  girl  who  will  make 
you  happy,  and  you  can  reserve  your  ambitions  for  your  eldest 
son,  who  will  be  three  times  as  rich  as  you  are  if  you  are  wise 
enough  to  live  quietly  and  economically,  in  the  shade  and  in 
the  peace  of  the  Lord,  so  as  to  redeem  the  family  estates. 
That  is  as  simple  as  a  Breton  heart.  You  will  get  rich  less 
quickly,  but  far  more  surely." 

"  Your  aunt  is  right,  my  darling;  she  cares  as  much  for 
your  happiness  as  I  do.  If  I  should  not  succeed  in  arranging 
your  marriage  with  Miss  Margaret,  your  uncle  Lord  Fitz- 
William's  daughter,  it  is  almost  certain  that  Mademoiselle  de 
Pen-Hoel  will  leave  her  money  to  either  of  her  nieces  you  may 
prefer.'' 

"And  there  will  be  a  few  crown-pieces  here,"  said  the  old 
aunt  in  a  low  mysterious  voice. 

"  I !  Marry  at  my  age?  "  said  he,  with  one  of  those  looks 
which  weaken  a  mother's  reason.  "Am  I  to  have  no  sweet 
and  crazy  love-making?  Am  I  never  to  tremble,  thrill, 
flutter,  fear,  lie  down  under  a  pitiless  gaze  and  presently  melt 
it  ?  May  I  never  know  the  beauty  that  is  free,  the  fancy  of 
the  soul,  the  clouds  that  fleet  over  the  serene  blue  of  happi- 
ness and  that  the  breath  of  enjoyment  blows  away?     May  I 


BEATRIX.  Ill 

never  stand  under  a  gutter-spout  without  discovering  that  it  is 
raining,  like  the  lovers  seen  by  Diderot  ?  Shall  I  never  hold 
a  burning  coal  in  the  palm  of  my  hand  like  the  Due  de  Lor- 
raine ?  Shall  I  never  climb  a  silken  rope-ladder,  nor  cling  to 
a  rotten  old  trellis  without  feeling  it  yield  ?  Am  I  never  to 
hide  in  a  closet  or  under  a  bed  ?  Must  I  know  nothing  of 
woman  but  wifely  surrender,  or  of  love  but  its  equitable  lamp- 
light ?  Is  all  my  curiosity  to  be  satiated  before  it  is  excited  ? 
Am  I  to  live  without  ever  feeling  that  fury  of  the  heart  which 
adds  to  a  man's  power?  Am  I  to  be  a  married  monk  ?  No  ! 
I  have  set  my  teeth  in  the  Paris  apple  of  civilization.  Do  you 
not  perceive  that  by  your  chaste,  your  ignorant  family  habits  you 
have  laid  the  fire  that  is  consuming  me,  and  that  I  shall  be 
burnt  up  before  I  can  adore  the  divinity  I  see  wherever  I  turn 
— in  the  green  foliage  and  in  the  sand  glowing  in  the  sun- 
shine, and  in  all  the  beautiful,  lordly,  and  elegant  women  who 
are  described  in  the  books  and  poems  I  have  devoured  at  Ca- 
mille's  ?  Alas  !  There  is  but  one  such  woman  in  all  Guerande, 
and  that  is  you,  mother  !  The  lovely  blue  birds  of  my  dreams 
come  from  Paris ;  they  live  in  the  pages  of  Lord  Byron  and 
Scott ;  they  are  Parisina,  Effie,  Minna !  Or,  again,  that 
Royal  Duchess  I  saw  on  the  moors  among  the  heath  and 
broom,  whose  beauty  sent  my  blood  with  a  rush  to  the 
heart!  " 

These  thoughts  were  clearer,  more  brilliant,  more  living,  to 
the  Baroness'  eye  than  art  can  make  them  to  the  reader ;  she 
saw  them  in  a  flash  shot  from  the  boy's  glance  like  the  arrows 
from  a  quiver  that  is  upset.  Though  she  had  never  read 
Beaumarchais,  she  thought,  as  any  woman  would,  that  it  would 
be  a  crime  to  make  this  Cherubino  marry. 

"Oh,  my  dear  boy!  "  said  she,  taking  him  in  her  arms, 
pressing  him  to  her,  and  kissing  his  beautiful  hair — still  her 
own — "  marry  when  you  please,  only  be  happy.  It  is  not  my 
part  to  tease  you." 

Mariotte  came  to  lay  the  table.     Gasselin  had  gone  out  to 


112  BEATRIX. 

exercise  Calyste's  horse,  for  he  had  not  ridden  it  these  two 
months.  The  three  women,  the  mother,  the  aunt,  and  Mari- 
otte  were  of  one  mind,  with  the  natural  cunning  of  women,  to 
make  much  of  Calyste  when  he  dined  at  home.  Breton  penu- 
riousness,  fortified  by  the  memories  and  habits  of  childhood, 
tried  to  contend  with  the  civilization  of  Paris  so  faithfully 
represented  at  les  Touches,  so  close  to  Gnerande.  Mariotte 
tried  to  disgust  her  young  master  with  the  elaborate  dishes 
prepared  in  Camille  Maupin's  kitchen,  as  his  mother  and  aunt 
vied  with  each  other  in  attentions  to  enmesh  their  child  in 
the  nets  of  their  tenderness,  and  to  make  comparisons  impos- 
sible. 

"Ah,  ha!  You  have  a  lubine  (a  sort  of  fish),  Monsieur 
Calyste,  and  snipe,  and  pancakes  such  as  you  will  never  get 
anywhere  but  here,"  said  Mariotte,  with  a  knowing  and  tri- 
umphant air,  as  she  looked  down  on  the  white  cloth,  a  perfect 
sheet  of  snow. 

After  dinner,  when  his  old  aunt  had  settled  down  to  her 
knitting  again,  when  the  cure  of  Guerande  and  the  Chevalier 
du  Halga  came  in,  attracted  by  their  game  of  mouche,  Calyste 
went  out  to  go  back  to  les  Touches,  saying  he  must  return 
Beatrix's  letter. 

Claud  Vignon  and  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  were  still  at 
table.  The  great  critic  had  a  tendency  to  greediness,  and 
this  vice  was  humored  by  Felicite,  who  knew  how  a  woman 
makes  herself  indispensable  by  such  attentions. 

The  dining-room,  lately  finished  by  considerable  additions, 
showed  how  readily  and  how  quickly  a  woman  can  marry 
the  nature,  adopt  the  profession,  the  passions,  and  the  tastes 
of  the  man  she  loves  or  means  to,  love.  The  table  had  the 
rich  and  dazzling  appearance  which  modern  luxury,  seconded 
by  the  improvements  in  manufactures,  stamps  on  every  detail. 
The  noble  but  impoverished  house  of  du  Guenic  knew  not 
the  antagonist  with  whom  it  had  to  do  battle,  nor  how  large  a 


Beatrix.  us 

sum  was  needed  to  contend  with  the  brand-new  plate  brought 
from  Paris  by  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  with  her  china — 
thought  good  enough  for  the  country — her  fine  linen,  her 
silver-gilt,  all  the  trifles  on  her  table,  and  all  the  skill  of  her 
man-cook. 

Calyste  declined  to  take  any  of  the  liqueurs  contained  in 
one  of  the  beautiful  inlaid  cases  of  precious  woods,  that 
might  be  shrines. 

"  Here  is  your  letter,"  he  said,  with  childish  ostentation, 
looking  at  Claud,  who  was  sipping  a  glass  of  West  India 
liqueur. 

"Well,  what  do  you  think  of  it?"  asked  Mademoiselle 
des  Touches,  tossing  the  letter  across  the  table  to  Vignon, 
who  read  it,  alternately  lifting  and  setting  down  his  glass. 

"Why — that  the  women  of  Paris  are  very  happy;  they  all 
have  men  of  genius,  who  love  them,  to  worship." 

"  Dear  me,  you  are  still  but  a  rustic  !  "  said  Felicite,  with  a 
laugh.  "What!  You  did  not  discover  that  she  already 
loves  him  less,  that " 

"It  is  self-evident  !  "  said  Claud  Vignon,  who  had  as  yet 
read  no  more  than  the  first  page.  "When  a  woman  is  really 
in  love,  does  she  trouble  her  head  in  the  least  about  her  posi- 
tion ?  Is  she  as  finely  observant  as  the  Marquise?  Can  she 
calculate  ?  Can  she  distinguish  ?  Our  dear  Beatrix  is  tied  to 
Conti  by  her  pride ;  she  is  condemned  to  love  him,  come 
what  may." 

"  Poor  woman  !  "  said  Camille. 

Calyste  sat  staring  at  the  table,  but  he  saw  nothing.  The 
beautiful  creature  in  her  fantastic  costume,  as  sketched  by 
Felicite  that  morning,  rose  before  him,  radiant  with  light ;  she 
smiled  on  him,  she  played  with  her  fan,  and  her  other  hand, 
emerging  from  a  frill  of  lace  and  cherry-colored  velvet,  lay 
white  and  still  on  the  full  folds  of  her  magnificent  petticoat. 

"  This  is  the  very  thing  for  you,"  said  Claud  Vignon,  with 
a  sardonic  smile  at  Calyste. 
8 


114  BEATRIX. 

Calyste  was  offended  at  the  words  the  very  thing. 

"Do  not  suggest  the  idea  of  such  an  intrigue  to  the  dear 
child  ;  you  do  not  know  how  dangerous  such  a  jest  may  be. 
I  know  Beatrix ;  she  has  too  much  magnanimity  of  temper  to 
change;  beside,  Conti  will  be  with  her." 

"Ah  !  "  said  Claud  Vignon  satirically,  "a  little  twinge  of 
jealousy,  heh  ?  " 

"  Can  you  suppose  it?  "  said  Camille  proudly. 

"  You  are  more  clear-sighted  than  a  mother  could  be,"  re- 
plied Claud. 

"But  I  ask  you,  is  it  possible?"  and  she  looked  at  Ca- 
lyste. 

"And  yet,"  Vignon  went  on,  "they  would  be  well 
matched.  She  is  ten  years  older  than  he  is ;  he  would  be 
the  girl." 

"A  girl,  monsieur,  who  has  twice  been  under  fire  in  la 
Vendee.  If  there  had  but  been  twenty  thousand  of  such 
girls " 

"I  was  singing  your  praise,"  said  Vignon,  "an  easier 
matter  than  singeing  your  beard." 

"  I  have  a  sword  to  cut  the  beards  of  those  who  wear  them 
too  long,"  retorted  Calyste. 

"  And  I  have  a  tongue  that  cuts  sharply  too,"  replied 
Vignon,  smiling.  "  We  are  Frenchmen — the  affair  can  be 
arranged." 

Mademoiselle  des  Touches  gave  Calyste  a  beseeching  look, 
which  calmed  him  at  once. 

"Why,"  said  Felicite,  to  end  the  discussion,  "  why  is  it 
that  youths,  like  my  Calyste  there,  always  begin  by  loving 
women  no  longer  young?  " 

"  I  know  of  no  more  guileless  and  generous  impulse,"  said 
Vignon.  "  It  is  the  consequence  of  the  delightful  qualities 
of  youth.  And,  beside,  to  what  end  would  old  women  come 
if  it  were  not  for  such  love?  You  are  young  and  hand- 
some, and  will    be    for    twenty  years    to  come;  before  you 


BEATRIX.  115 

We  may  speak  plainly,"  he  went  on,  with  a  keen  glance  at 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches.  "  In  the  first  place,  the  semi-dow- 
agers to  whom  very  young  men  attach  themselves  know  how 
to  love  far  better  than  young  women.  A  youth  is  too  like  a 
woman  for  a  young  woman  to  attract  him.  Such  a  passion 
is  too  suggestive  of  the  myth  of  Narcissus.  Beside  this,  there 
is,  I  believe,  a  common  want  of  experience  which  keeps  them 
asunder.  Hence  the  reason  which  makes  it  true  that  a  young 
woman's  heart  can  only  be  understood  by  a  man  in  whom 
long  practice  is  veiled  by  his  real  or  assumed  passion  is  the 
same  as  that  which,  allowing  for  differences  of  nature,  makes 
a  woman  past  her  youth  more  seductive  to  a  boy  ;  he  is  in- 
tensely conscious  that  he  will  succeed  with  her,  and  the 
woman's  vanity  is  intensely  flattered  by  his  pursuit  of  her. 

"  Then,  again,  it  is  natural  that  the  young  should  seize  on 
fruit,  and  autumn  offers  many  fine  and  luscious  kinds.  Is  it 
nothing  to  meet  those  looks,  at  once  bold  and  reserved,  lan- 
guishing at  the  proper  moments,  soft  with  the  last  gleams  of 
love,  so  warm,  so  soothing  ?  And  the  elaborate  elegance  of 
speech,  the  splendid  ripe  shoulders  so  finely  filled  out,  the 
ample  roundness,  the  rich  and  undulating  plumpness,  the 
hands  full  of  dimples,  the  pulpy,  well-nourished  skin,  the 
brow  full  of  overflowing  sentiment,  on  which  the  light  lingers, 
the  hair,  so  carefully  cherished  and  dressed,  where  fine  part- 
ings of  white  skin  are  delicately  traced,  and  the  throat  with 
those  fine  curves,  the  inviting  nape  where  every  resource  of 
art  is  applied  to  bring  out  the  contrast  between  the  hair  and 
the  tones  of  the  flesh,  to  emphasize  all  the  audacity  of  life 
and  love  ?  Dark  women  then  get  some  of  the  tones  of  the 
fairest,  the  amber  shade  of  maturity. 

"  Then,  again,  these  women  betray  their  knowledge  of  the 
world  in  their  smiles,  and  display  it  in  their  conversation; 
they  know  how  to  talk  ;  they  will  set  the  whole  world  before 
you  to  raise  a  smile  ;  they  have  sublime  touches  of  dignity 
and  pride ;  they  can  shriek  with  despair  in  a  way  to  break 


116  BE  A  TRIX. 

your  heart,  wail  a  farewell  to  love,  knowing  that  it  is  futile, 
and  only  resuscitates  passion  ;  they  grow  young  again  by  dint 
of  varying  the  most  desperately  simple  things.  They  con^ 
stantly  expect  to  be  contradicted  as  to  the  falling  off  they 
so  coquettishly  proclaim,  and  the  intoxication  of  their  tri- 
umph is  contagious.  Their  devotion  is  complete  ;  they  listen  ; 
in  short,  they  love ;  they  clutch  at  love  as  a  man  condemned 
to  death  clings  to  the  smallest  trifles  of  living ;  they  are  like 
those  lawyers  who  can  urge  every  plea  in  a  case  without  fa- 
tiguing the  court;  they  exhaust  every  means  in  their  power; 
indeed,  perfect  love  can  only  be  known  in  them. 

"  I  doubt  if  they  are  ever  forgotten,  any  more  than  we  can 
forget  anything  vast  and  sublime. 

"A  young  woman  has  a  thousand  other  things  to  amuse 
her,  these  women  have  nothing ;  they  have  no  conceit  left,  no 
vanity,  no  meanness;  their  love  is  the  Loire  at  its  mouth, 
immense,  swelled  by  every  disenchantment,  every  affluent  of 
life,  and  that  is  why — my  daughter  is  dumb  ! "  he  ended, 
seeing  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  in  an  attitude  of  ecstasy, 
clutching  Calyste's  hand  tightly,  perhaps  to  thank  him  for 
having  been  the  cause  of  such  a  moment  for  her,  of  such  a 
tribute  of  praise  that  she  could  detect  no  snare  in  it. 

All  through  the  evening  Claud  Vignon  and  Felicite  were 
brilliantly  witty,  telling  anecdotes  and  describing  the  life  of 
Paris  to  Calyste,  who  quite  fell  in  love  with  Claud,  for  wit 
exerts  a  peculiar  charm  on  men  of  feeling. 

"  I  should  not  be  in  the  least  surprised  to  see  Madame  de 
Rochefide  land  here  to-morrow  with  Conti,  who  is  accom- 
panying her  no  doubt,"  said  Claud  at  the  end  of  the  evening. 
"  When  I  came  up  from  le  Croisic  the  seamen  had  spied  a 
small  ship,  Danish,  Swedish,  or  Norwegian." 

This  speech  brought  the  color  to  Camille's  cheeks,  calm  as 
she  was. 

That  night,  again,  Madame  du  Guenic  sat  up  for  her  son 


BEATRIX.  117 

till  one  o'clock,  unable  to  imagine  what  he  could  be  doing  at 
les  Touches  if  Felicite  did  not  love  him. 

"He  must  be  in  the  way,"  thought  this  delightful  mother. 

"What  have  you  had  to  talk  about  so  long?"  she  asked, 
as  she  saw  him  come  in. 

"Oh,  mother!  I  never  spent  a  more  delightful  evening. 
Genius  is  a  great,  a  most  sublime  thing!  Why  did  you  not 
bestow  genius  on  me?  With  genius  a  man  must  be  able  to 
choose  the  woman  he  loves  from  all  the  world ;  she  must 
inevitably  be  his  !  " 

"But  you  are  handsome,  my  Calyste." 

"Beauty  has  no  place  but  in  women.  And,  beside,  Claud 
Vignon  is  fine.  Men  of  genius  have  a  brow  that  beams,  eyes 
where  lightnings  play — and  I,  unhappy  wretch,  I  only  know 
how  to  love." 

"They  say  that  is  all-sufficient,  my  darling,"  said  she, 
kissing  his  forehead. 

"Really,  truly?" 

"I  have  been  told  so.     I  have  had  no  experience." 

It  was  now  Calyste's  turn  to  kiss  his  mother's  hand  with 
reverence. 

"  I  will  love  for  all  those  who  might  have  been  your 
adorers,"  said  he. 

"Dear  child,  it  is  in  some  degree  your  duty;  you  have 
inherited  all  my  feelings.  So  do  not  be  rash  ;  try  to  love 
only  high-souled  women,  if  you  must  love." 

What  young  man,  welling  over  with  passion  and  suppressed 
vitality,  but  would  have  had  the  triumphant  idea  of  going  to 
le  Croisic  to  see  Madame  de  Rochefide  land,  so  as  to  be  able 
to  study  her,  himself  unknown  ?  Calyste  greatly  amazed  his 
father  and  mother,  who  knew  nothing  of  the  fair  Marquise's 
arrival,  by  setting  out  in  the  morning  without  waiting  for 
breakfast.  Heaven  knows  how  briskly  the  boy  stepped  out. 
He  felt  as  if  some  new  strength  had  come  to  his  aid,  he  was 


118  BE  A  TRIX. 

so  light ;  he  kept  close  under  the  walls  of  les  Touches  to  avoid 
being  seen.  The  delightful  boy  was  ashamed  of  his  ardor,  and 
had  perhaps  a  miserable  fear  of  being  laughed  at ;  Felicite  and 
Claud  Vignon  were  so  horribly  keen -sighted  !  And,  then,  in 
such  cases  a  youth  believes  that  his  forehead  is  transparent. 

He  followed  the  zigzag  path  across  the  maze  of  salt-marshes, 
reached  the  sands,  and  was  across  them  with  a  skip  and  a 
hop,  in  spite  of  the  scorching  sun  that  twinkled  on  them. 

This  brought  him  to  the  edge  of  the  strand,  banked  up 
with  a  breakwater,  near  which  stands  a  house  where  travelers 
may  find  shelter  from  storms,  sea-gales,  rain,  and  the  whirl- 
wind. It  is  not  always  possible  to  cross  the  little  strait,  nor 
are  there  always  boats,  and  it  is  convenient,  while  they  are 
crossing  from  the  port,  to  have  shelter  for  the  horses,  asses, 
merchandise,  or  passengers'  luggage.  From  thence  men  can 
scan  the  open  sea  and  the  port  of  le  Croisic ;  and  from  thence 
Calyste  soon  discerned  two  boats  coming,  loaded  with  bag- 
gage— bundles,  trunks,  carpet-bags,  and  cases,  of  which  the 
shape  and  size  proclaimed  to  the  natives  the  arrival  of  extra- 
ordinary things,  such  as  could  only  belong  to  a  voyager  of 
distinction. 

In  one  of  these  boats  sat  a  young  woman  with  a  straw  hat 
and  green  veil,  accompanied  by  a  man.  This  boat  was  the 
first  to  come  to  land.  Calyste  felt  a  thrill ;  but  their  appear- 
ance showed  them  to  be  a  maid  and  a  manservant,  and  he 
dared  not  question  them. 

"Are  you  crossing  to  le  Croisic,  Monsieur  Calyste?" 
asked  one  of  the  boatmen,  who  knew  him ;  but  he  replied 
only  by  a  negative  shake  of  the  head,  ashamed  of  having  his 
name  mentioned. 

Calyste  was  enchanted  at  the  sight  of  a  trunk  covered  with 
waterproof  canvas,  on  which  he  read  Madame  la  Marquise 
PE  Rochefide.  The  name  glittered  in  his  eyes  like  some 
talisman ;  it  had  to  him  a  purport  of  mysterious  doom ;  he 
knew  beyond  a  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  he  should  fall  in  love 


BE  A  TRIX.  119 

with  this  woman  ;  the  smallest  things,  relating  to  her  inter- 
ested him  already,  spurred  his  fancy  and  his  curiosity.  Why? 
In  the  burning  desert  of  its  immeasurable  and  objectless  de- 
sires does  not  youth  put  forth  all  its  powers  toward  the  first 
woman  who  comes  within  reach  ?  Beatrix  had  fallen  heir  to 
the  love  that  Camille  had  disdained. 

Calyste  watched  the  landing  of  the  baggage,  looking  out 
from  time  to  time  at  le  Croisic,  hoping  to  see  a  boat  come 
out  of  the  harbor,  cross  to  this  little  headland,  and  reveal  to 
him  the  Beatrix  who  had  already  become  to  him  what  another 
Beatrix  was  to  Dante,  an  eternal  statue  of  marble  on  whose 
hands  he  would  hang  his  flowers  and  wreaths.  He  stood  with 
his  arms  folded,  lost  in  the  dream  of  expectancy.  A  thing 
worthy  of  remark,  but  which  nevertheless  has  never  been  re- 
marked, is  the  way  in  which  we  frequently  subordinate  our 
feelings  to  our  will,  how  we  pledge  ourself  to  ourself  as  it 
were,  and  how  we  make  our  fate ;  chance  has  certainly  far 
less  share  in  it  than  we  suppose. 

"I  see  no  horses,"  said  the  maid,  sitting  on  a  trunk. 

"And  I  see  no  carriage-road,"  said  the  valet. 

"  Well,  horses  have  certainly  been  here,"  replied  the  woman, 
pointing  to  their  traces.  "Monsieur,"  said  she,  addressing 
Calyste,  "  is  that  the  road  leading  to  Guerande?  " 

"Yes,"  said  he,  "whom  are  you  expecting?" 

"We  were  told  that  we  should  be  met,  fetched  to  les 
Touches.  If  they  are  very  late,  I  do  not  know  how  madame 
can  dress,"  said  she  to  the  man.  "You  had  better  walk  on 
to  les  Touches.     What  a  land  of  savages  !  " 

It  dawned  on  Calyste  that  he  was  in  a  false  position. 

"Then  your  mistress  is  going  to  les  Touches?"  he  asked. 

"  Mademoiselle  came  to  meet  her  at  seven  this  morning:," 
was  the  reply.      "  Ah  !   here  come  the  horses." 

Calyste  fled,  running  back  to  Guerande  with  the  swiftness 
and  lightness  of  a  chamois,  and  doubling  like  a  hare  to  avoid 
being  seen  by  the  servants  from  les  Touches;  still,  he  met 


120  BEATRIX. 

two  of  them  in  the  narrow  way  across  the  marsh  which  he 
had  to  cross. 

"  Shall  I  go  in  ?  Shall  I  not?  "  he  asked  himself  as  he  saw 
the  tops  of  the  pine  trees  of  les  Touches. 

He  was  afraid  ;  he  returned  to  Guerande,  hang-dog  and 
repentant,  and  walked  up  and  down  the  mall,  where  he  con- 
tinued the  discussion  with  himself. 

He  started  as  he  caught  sight  of  les  Touches,  and  studied 
the  weathercocks. 

"She  can  have  no  idea  of  my  excitement,"  said  he  to 
himself. 

His  wandering  thoughts  became  so  many  grapnels  that 
caught  in  his  heart  and  held  the  Marquise  there.  Calyste 
had  felt  none  of  these  terrors,  these  anticipatory  joys  with 
regard  to  Camille ;  he  had  first  met  her  on  horseback,  and 
his  desire  had  sprung  up,  as  at  the  sight  of  a  beautiful  flower 
he  might  have  longed  to  pluck.  These  vacillations  constitute 
a  sort  of  poem  in  a  timid  soul.  Fired  by  the  first  flames  of 
imagination,  these  souls  rise  up  in  wrath,  are  appeased,  and 
eager  by  turns,  and  in  silence  and  solitude  reach  the  utmost 
heights  of  love  before  they  have  even  spoken  to  the  object  of 
so  many  struggles. 

Calyste  saw  from  afar,  on  the  mall,  the  Chevalier  du  Halga, 
walking  with  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel ;  he  hid  himself. 
The  chevalier  and  the  old  lady,  believing  themselves  alone  on 
the  mall,  were  talking  aloud. 

"Since  Charlotte  de  Kergarouet  is  coming  to  you,"  said 
the  chevalier,  "keep  her  three  or  four  months.  How  can 
you  expect  her  to  flirt  with  Calyste?  She  never  stays  here 
long  enough  to  attempt  it ;  whereas,  if  they  see  each  other 
every  day,  the  two  children  will  end  by  being  desperately  in 
love,  and  you  will  see  them  married  this  winter.  If  you  say 
two  words  of  your  plans  to  Charlotte,  she  will  at  once  say  four 
to  Calyste;  and  a  girl  of  sixteen  will  certainly  win  the  day 
against  a  woman  of  forty-something!  " 


BEATRIX.  121 

The  two  old  folk  turned  to  retrace  their  steps.  Calyste 
heard  no  more,  but  he  had  understood  what  Mademoiselle  de 
Pen-Hoel's  plan  was.  In  his  present  frame  of  mind  nothing 
could  be  more  disastrous.  Is  it  in  the  fever  of  a  preconceived 
passion  that  a  young  man  will  accept  as  his  wife  a  girl  found 
for  him  by  others  ?  Calyste, who  cared  not  a  straw  for  Charlotte 
de  Kergarouet,  felt  inclined  to  repulse  her.  Considerations  of 
money  could  not  touch  him  ;  he  had  been  accustomed  from 
childhood  to  the  modest  style  of  his  father's  house;  beside, 
seeing  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  live  as  poorly  as  the  Guenics 
themselves,  he  had  no  notion  of  her  wealth.  And  a  youth 
brought  up  as  Calyste  had  been  would  not,  in  any  case,  con- 
sider anything  but  feeling;  and  all  his  mind  was  set  on  the 
Marquise. 

Compared  with  the  portrait  drawn  by  Camille,  what  was 
Charlotte?  The  companion  of  his  childhood,  whom  he 
treated  as  his  sister. 

He  did  not  get  home  until  five  o'clock.  When  he  went 
into  the  room,  his  mother,  with  a  melancholy  smile,  handed 
him  a  note  from  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  as  follows : 

"My  dear  Calyste: — The  beautiful  Marquise  de  Roche- 
fide  has  arrived  ;  we  count  on  you  to  do  honor  to  her  advent. 
Claud,  always  satirical,  declares  that  you  will  be  Bice  and 
she  Dante.  The  honor  of  Brittany  and  of  the  Guenics  is  at 
stake  when  there  is  a  Casteran  to  be  welcomed.  So  let  us 
meet  soon.     Yours, 

"  Camille  Maupin. 

"  Come  as  you  are,  without  ceremony,  or  we  shall  look 
ridiculous." 

Calyste  showed  his  mother  the  note,  and  went  at  once. 
"What  are  these  Casterans?"  said  she  to  the  Baron. 
"An   old   Norman   family,  related   to  William   the   Con- 


122  BEATRIX. 

queror,"  he  replied.  "  Their  arms  are  In  tierce  per  fess  azure 
gules  and  or,  a  horse  rearing  argent  hoofed  or.  The  beautiful 
creature  for  whom  le  Gars  was  killed  at  Fougeres  in  1800  was 
the  daughter  of  a  Casteran,  who  became  a  nun  at  Seez  and 
was  made  abbess,  after  being  thrown  over  by  the  Due  de 
Verneuil." 

"And  the  Rochefides?" 

"  I  do  not  know  the  name  ;  I  should  want  to  see  their 
arms,"  said  he. 

The  Baroness  was  a  little  relieved  at  hearing  that  the  Mar- 
quise Beatrix  de  Rochefide  was  of  an  old  family  ;  still,  she 
felt  some  alarm  at  knowing  that  her  son  was  exposed  to  fresh 
fascinations. 

Calyste,  as  he  walked,  felt  the  most  violent  and  yet  de- 
lightful impulses;  his  throat  was  choked,  his  heart  full,  his 
brain  confused ;  he  was  devoured  by  fever.  He  wanted  to 
walk  slower,  but  a  superior  power  urged  him  on.  All  young 
men  have  known  this  perturbation  of  the  senses  caused  by  a 
vague  hope  :  a  subtle  fire  flames  within  and  raises  a  halo,  like 
the  glory  shown  about  the  divine  persons  in  a  sacred  picture, 
through  which  they  see  nature  in  a  glow  and  woman  radiant. 
Are  they  not,  then,  like  the  saints  themselves,  full  of  faith, 
ardor,  hope,  and  purity? 

The  young  Breton  found  the  whole  party  in  Camille's  little 
private  drawing-room.  It  was  by  this  time  nearly  six  o'clock  ; 
through  the  windows  the  sinking  sun  shed  a  ruddy  light, 
broken  by  the  trees ;  the  air  was  still,  the  room  was  full  of 
the  soft  gloom  that  women  love  so  well. 

"  Here  is  the  member  for  Brittany,"  said  Camille  Maupin, 
smiling  to  her  friend,  as  Calyste  lifted  the  tapestry  curtain 
over  the  door.      "As  punctual  as  a  king  !  " 

"You  recognized  his  step?  "  said  Claud  Vignon  to  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches. 

Calyste  bowed  to  the  Marquise,  who  merely  nodded  to  him  j 


BEATRIX.  123 

he  had  not  looked  at  her.     He  shook  hands  with  Claud  Vig- 
non,  who  offered  him  his  hand. 

"  Here  is  the  great  man  of  whom  you  have  heard  so  much, 
Gennaro  Conti,"  Camille  went  on,  without  answering  Claud 
Vignon. 

She  introduced  to  Calyste  a  man  of  middle  height,  thin  and 
slender,  with  chestnut  hair,  eyes  that  were  almost  orange 
color,  with  a  white,  freckled  skin;  in  short,  so  exactly  the 
well-known  head  of  Lord  Byron  that  it  would  be  superfluous 
to  describe  it — but  perhaps  he  held  it  better.  Conti  was  not 
a  little  proud  of  this  resemblance. 

"I  am  delighted,  being  but  one  day  at  les  Touches,  to  meet 
monsieur,"  said  Gennaro. 

"It  is  my  part  to  say  as  much  to  you,"  replied  Calyste, 
with  sufficient  ease  of  manner. 

"  He  is  as  handsome  as  an  angel  !  "  the  Marquise  said  to 
Felicite.  Calyste,  standing  between  the  divan  and  the  two 
women,  overheard  the  words,  though  spoken  in  a  whisper. 
He  moved  to  an  armchair,  and  stole  watchful  looks  at  the 
Marquise.  In  the  soft  light  of  the  setting  sun  he  saw  lounging 
on  the  divan,  as  though  a  sculptor  had  placed  her  in  position, 
a  white  sinuous  figure  which  seemed  to  dazzle  his  sight. 
Felicite,  without  knowing  it,  had  served  her  friend  well  by 
her  description. 

Beatrix  was  superior  to  the  not  too  flattering  portrait  drawn 
by  Camille.  Was  it  not  partly  for  the  stranger's  benefit  that 
Beatrix  had  placed  in  her  splendid  hair  bunches  of  blue  corn- 
flowers, which  showed  off  the  pale  gleam  of  her  ringlets,  ar- 
ranged to  frame  her  face  and  flicker  over  her  cheeks  ?  Her 
eyes  were  set  in  circles  darkened  by  fatigue,  tut  only  to  the 
tone  of  the  purest  and  most  opalescent  mother-of-pearl ;  her 
cheeks  were  as  bright  as  her  eyes.  Under  her  white  skin,  as 
delicate  as  the  silky  lining  of  an  egg-shell,  life  flushed  in  the 
purple  blood.  The  finish  of  her  features  was  exquisite ; 
her   brow  seemed   diaphanous.     This  fair  and  gentle  head, 


124  BE  A  TRIX. 

finely  set  on  a  long  neck  of  marvelous  beauty,  lent  itself  to 
the  most  varying  expression. 

Her  waist,  slight  enough  to  span,  had  a  bewitching  grace ; 
her  bare  shoulders  gleamed  in  the  twilight  like  a  white 
camellia  in  black  hair.  The  bosom,  well  supported,  but 
covered  with  a  clear  handkerchief,  showed  two  exquisitely 
enticing  curves.  The  India-muslin  dress,  white  flowered 
with  blue ;  the  wide  sleeves ;  the  bodice,  pointed  and  without 
any  sash ;  the  shoes  with  sandals  crossed  over  fine  thread 
stockings — all  showed  perfect  knowledge  of  the  arts  of  dress. 
Earrings  of  silver  filigree,  marvels  of  Genoese  work  which  no 
doubt  were  coming  into  fashion,  were  admirably  suited  to  the 
exquisite  softness  of  the  fair  hair  starred  with  cornflowers. 

At  a  single  eager  glance  Calyste  took  in  all  this  beauty, 
which  stamped  itself  on  his  soul.  Beatrix,  so  fair,  and 
Felicite,  so  dark,  recalled  the  "Keepsake"  contrasts,  so 
much  affected  by  English  engravers  and  draughtsmen.  They 
were  woman's  weakness  and  woman's  strength  in  their  utmost 
expression,  a  perfect  antithesis.  These  two  women  could 
never  be  rivals ;  each  had  her  empire.  They  were  like  a 
delicate  pale  periwinkle  or  lily  by  the  side  of  a  sumptuous 
and  gorgeous  red  poppy,  or  a  turquoise  by  a  ruby.  In  an 
instant  Calyste  was  possessed  by  a  passion  which  crowned  the 
secret  working  of  his  hopes,  his  fears,  his  doubts.  Mademoi- 
selle des  Touches  had  roused  his  senses,  Beatrix  fired  his  mind 
and  heart.  The  young  Breton  was  conscious  of  the  birth 
within  himself  of  an  all-conquering  force  that  would  respect 
nothing.  And  he  shot  at  Conti  a  look  of  envy  and  hatred, 
gloomy,  and  full  of  alarms,  a  look  he  had  never  had  for 
Claud  Vignon. 

Calyste  called  up  all  his  resolution  to  restrain  himself, 
thinking,  nevertheless,  that  the  Turks  were  very  right  to  keep 
their  women  shut  up,  and  that  such  beautiful  creatures  should 
be  forbidden  to  show  themselves  in  their  tempting  witcheries 
to  young  men   aflame  with  love.     This  hot  hurricane  was 


BEATRIX.  125 

lulled  as  soon  as  Beatrix  turned  her  eyes  on  him  and  her 
gentle  voice  made  itself  heard ;  the  poor  boy  already  feared 
her  as  he  feared  God. 

The  dinner-bell  rang. 

"  Calyste,  give  your  arm  to  the  Marquise,"  said  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches,  taking  Conti  on  her  right  and  Claud 
on  her  left,  as  she  stood  aside  to  let  the  young  couple  pass. 

Thus  to  go  down  the  old  staircase  of  les  Touches  was  to 
Calyste  like  a  first  battle ;  his  heart  failed  him,  he  found  noth- 
ing to  say,  a  faint  moisture  stood  on  his  brow  and  down  his 
spine.  His  arm  trembled  so  violently  that  at  the  bottom  step 
the  Marquise  said  to  him — 

"What  is  the  matter?" 

"Never,"  said  he  in  a  choked  voice, .  "  never  in  my  life 
have  I  seen  a  woman  so  beautiful  as  you  are,  excepting  my 
mother;  and  I  cannot  control  my  agitation." 

"Why,  have  you  not  Camille  Maupin  here?" 

"But  what  a  difference  !  "  said  Calyste  artlessly. 

"  Ha  !  Calyste,"  Felicite  whispered  in  his  ear  ;  "  did  I  not 
tell  you  that  you  would  forget  me  as  though  I  had  never 
existed?  Sit  there,  next  her  on  the  right,  and  Vignon  on 
her  left.  As  for  you,  Gennaro,  I  keep  you  by  me,"  she  added, 
laughing;  "  we  will  keep  an  eye  on  her  flirtations." 

The  accent  in  which  Camille  spoke  struck  Claud,  who 
looked  at  her  with  the  wily  and  apparently  absent  glance, 
which  in  him  showed  that  he  was  observant.  He  never 
once  ceased  watching  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  throughout 
dinner. 

"  Flirtations  ! ' '  replied  the  Marquise,  drawing  off  her  gloves 
and  showing  her  beautiful  hands;  "I  have  every  excuse ;  on 
one  side  of  me  I  have  a  poet,"  and  she  turned  to  Claud,  "on 
the  other  poetry." 

Gennaro  bestowed  on  Calyste  a  gaze  full  of  flattery. 

By  candle-light  Beatrix  looked  even  more  beautiful  than 
before.     The  pale  gleam  of  the  wax-lights  cast  a  satin  sheen 


126  BEATRIX. 

on  her  forehead,  set  sparks  in  her  gazelle-like  eyes,  and  fell 
through  her  silky  ringlets,  making  separate  hairs  shine  like 
threads  of  gold.  With  a  graceful  movement  she  threw  off 
her  gauze  scarf,  uncovering  her  shoulders.  Calyste  could  then 
see  the  delicate  nape,  as  white  as  milk,  with  a  deep  hollow 
that  parted  into  two,  curving  off  toward  each  shoulder  with 
a  lovely  and  delusive  symmetry.  The  changes  of  aspect  in 
which  pretty  women  indulge  produce  very  little  effect  in  the 
fashionable  world,  where  every  eye  is  blase,  but  they  commit 
fearful  ravages  in  a  soul  as  fresh  as  was  Calyste's.  This  bust, 
so  unlike  Camille's,  revealed  a  perfectly  different  character  in 
Beatrix.  There  could  be  seen  pride  of  race,  a  tenacity  pecu- 
liar to  the  aristocracy,  and  a  certain  hardness  in  that  double 
muscle  of  the  shoulder,  which  is  perhaps  the  last  surviving 
vestige  of  the  conquerors'  strength. 

Calyste  found  it  very  difficult  to  seem  to  eat ;  he  was  full 
of  nervous  feelings,  which  took  away  his  hunger.  As  in  all 
young  men,  nature  was  in  the  clutches  of  those  throes  which 
precede  first  love,  and  stamp  it  so  deeply  on  the  soul.  At  his 
age  the  ardor  of.  the  heart  repressed  by  the  ardor  of  the 
moral  sense  leads  to  an  internal  conflict,  which  accounts  for 
the  long,  respectful  hesitancy,  the  deep  absorption  of  love, 
the  absence  of  all  self-interest — all  the  peculiar  attractions  of 
youths  whose  heart  and  life  are  pure. 

As  he  noted — by  stealth,  so  as  not  to  rouse  Gennaro's 
jealous  suspicions — all  the  details  which  make  the  Marquise 
de  Rochefide  so  supremely  beautiful,  Calyste  was  oppressed 
by  the  majesty  of  the  lady  beloved  ;  he  felt  himself  shrink 
before  the  haughtiness  of  some  of  her  glances,  the  imposing 
aspect  of  her  face,  overflowing  with  aristocratic  self-conscious- 
ness, a  pride  which  women  can  express  by  slight  movements, 
by  airs  of  the  head  and  a  magnificent  slowness  of  gesture, 
which  are  all  less  affected  and  less  studied  than  might  be  sup- 
posed. There  is  a  sentiment  behind  all  these  modes  of  ex- 
pression.     The  ambiguous  position   in  which  Beatrix  found 


JB£A  TRIX.  127 

herself  compelled  her  to  keep  a  watch  over  herself,  to  be  im- 
posing without  being  ridiculous ;  and  women  of  the  highest 
stamp  can  all  achieve  this,  though  it  is  the  rock  on  which 
ordinary  women  are  wrecked. 

Beatrix  could  guess  from  Felicite's  looks  all  the  secret 
adoration  she  inspired  in  her  neighbor,  and  that  it  was  un- 
worthy of  her  to  encourage  it ;  so  from  time  to  time  she 
bestowed  on  him  a  repellent  glance  that  fell  on  him  like  an 
avalanche  of  snow.  The  unfortunate  youth  appealed  to 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches  by  a  gaze  in  which  she  felt  the 
tears  kept  down  in  his  heart  by  superhuman  determination, 
and  Felicite  kindly  asked  him  why  he  ate  nothing.  Calyste 
stuffed  to  order,  and  made  a  feint  of  joining  in  the  conversa- 
tion. The  idea  of  being  tiresome  instead  of  agreeable  was 
unendurable,  and  hammered  at  his  brain.  He  was  all  the 
more  bashful  because  he  saw,  behind  the  Marquise's  chair,  the 
manservant  he  had  met  in  the  morning  on  the  jetty,  who 
would  no  doubt  report  his  curiosity. 

Whether  he  were  contrite  or  happy,  Madame  de  Rochefide 
paid  no  attention  to  him.  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  had 
led  her  to  talk  of  her  journey  in  Italy,  and  she  gave  a  very 
witty  account  of  the  point-blank  fire  of  passion  with  which  a 
little  Russian  diplomat  at  Florence  had  honored  her,  laugh- 
ing at  these  little  young  men  who  fling  themselves  at  a  woman 
as  a  locust  rushes  on  grass.  She  made  Claud  Vignon  and 
Gennaro  laugh,  and  Felicite  also  ;  but  these  darts  of  sarcasm 
went  straight  to  Calyste's  heart,  who  only  heard  words 
through  the  humming  in  his  ears  and  brain.  The  poor  boy 
made  no  vow,  as  some  obstinate  men  have  done,  to  win  this 
woman  at  any  cost ;  no,  he  was  not  angry,  he  was  miserable. 
When  he  discerned  in  Beatrix  an  intention  to  sacrifice  him  at 
Gennaro's  feet,  he  only  said  to  himself — "  If  only  I  can 
serve  her  in  any  way  !  "  and  allowed  himself  to  be  trampled 
on  with  the  meekness  of  a  lamb. 

"How  is  it,"  said  Claud  Vignon  to  the  Marquise,  "that 


128  BEATRIX. 

you,  who  so  much  admire  poetry,  give  it  so  bad  a  reception  ? 
Such  artless  admiration,  so  sweet  in  its  expression,  with  no 
second  thought,  no  reservation,  is  not  that  the  poetry  of  the 
heart  ?  Confess  now  that  it  gives  you  a  sense  of  satisfaction 
and  well-being." 

"  Certainly,"  she  replied,  "  but  we  should  be  very  unhappy 
and,  above  all,  very  worthless  if  we  yielded  to  every  passion 
we  inspire." 

"  If  you  made  no  selection,"  said  Conti,  "  we  should  not 
be  so  proud  of  being  loved." 

"  When  shall  I  be  chosen  and  distinguished  by  a  woman  ?  " 
Calyste  wondered  to  himself,  restraining  his  agony  of  emotion 
with  difficulty. 

He  reddened  like  a  sufferer  on  whose  wound  a  finger  is 
laid.  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  was  startled  by  the  expres- 
sion she  saw  in  Calyste's  face,  and  tried  to  comfort  him  with 
a  sympathizing  look.  Claud  Vignon  caught  that  look.  From 
that  moment  the  writer's  spirits  rose  and  he  vented  his  gayety 
in  sarcasms  :  he  maintained  that  love  lived  only  in  desire,  that 
most  women  were  mistaken  in  their  love,  that  they  often  loved 
for  reasons  unknown  to  the  men  and  to  themselves,  that  they 
sometimes  wished  to  deceive  themselves,  that  the  noblest  of 
them  were  still  insincere. 

"  Be  content  to  criticise  books,  and  do  not  criticise  our 
feelings,"  said  Camille,  with  an  imperious  flash. 

The  dinner  ceased  to  be  lively.  Claud  Vignon's  satire  had 
made  both  the  women  grave.  Calyste  was  in  acute  torment 
in  spite  of  the  happiness  of  gazing  at  Beatrix.  Conti  tried 
to  read  Madame  de  Rochefide's  eyes  and  guess  her  thoughts. 
When  the  meal  was  ended,  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  took 
Calyste's  arm,  left  the  other  two  men  to  the  Marquise,  and 
allowed  them  to  lead  the  way,  so  as  to  say  to  the  youth — 

'•'  My  dear  boy,  if  the  Marquise  falls  in  love  with  you,  she 
will  pitch  Conti  out  of  the  window ;  but  you  are  behaving 
in  such  a  way  as  to  tighten  their  bonds.     Even  if  she  were 


BE  A  TRIX.  129 

enchanted  by  your  worship,  could  she  take  any  notice  of  it? 
Command  yourself." 

"She  is  so  hard  on  me,  she  will  never  love  me,"  said 
Calyste;  "  and  if  she  does  not  love  me,  I  shall  die." 

"Die?  you!  My  dear  Calyste,  you  are  childish,"  said 
Camille.      "  You  would  not  have  died  for  me,  then  ?  " 

"You  made  yourself  my  friend,"  replied  he. 

After  the  little  chat  that  always  accompanies  the  coffee, 
Vignon  begged  Conti  to  sing.  Mademoiselle  des  Touches 
sat  down  to  the  piano.  Camille  and  Gennaro  sang  Dunque 
il  mio  bene  tu  mia  sarai,  the  final  duet  in  Zingarelli's  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet,"  one  of  the  most  pathetic  pages  of  modern 
music.  The  passage  Di  tanti  palpiti  expresses  love  in  all  its 
passion.  Calyste,  sitting  in  the  armchair  where  he  had  sat 
when  Felicite  had  told  him  the  story  of  the  Marquise,  lis- 
tened devoutly.  Beatrix  and  Vignon  stood  on  each  side  of 
the  piano. 

Conti's  exquisite  voice  blended  perfectly  with  Felicite's. 
They  both  had  frequently  sung  the  piece ;  they  knew  all  its 
resources,  and  agreed  wonderfully  in  bringing  them  out.  It 
was  in  their  hands  what  the  musician  had  intended  to  create, 
a  poem  of  divine  melancholy,  the  swan's  song  of  two  lovers. 
When  the  duet  was  ended  the  hearers  were  all  in  a  state  of 
feeling  that  cannot  find  expression  in  vulgar  applause. 

"  Oh,  Music  is  the  queen  of  the  arts  !  "  exclaimed  the  Mar- 
quise. 

"  Camille  gives  the  first  place  to  youth  and  beauty — the 
queen  of  all  poetry,"  said  Claud  Vignon. 

Mademoiselle  des  Touches  looked  at  Claud,  dissembling  a 
vague  uneasiness.  Beatrix,  not  seeing  Calyste,  looked  round 
to  see  what  effect  the  music  had  on  him,  less  out  of  interest 
in  him  than  for  Conti's  satisfaction.  In  a  recess  she  saw  a 
pale  face  covered  with  tears.  At  the  sight  she  hastily  turned 
away,  as  if  some  acute  pain  had  stung  her,  and  looked  at 
Gennaro. 
9 


130  BEATRIX. 

It  was  not  merely  that  Music  had  risen  up  before  Calyste, 
had  touched  him  with  her  divine  hand,  had  launched  him  on 
creation  and  stripped  it  of  its  mysteries  to  his  eyes — he  was 
overwhelmed  by  Conti's  genius.  In  spite  of  what  Camille 
Maupin  had  told  him  of  the  man's  character,  he  believed  at 
this  moment  that  the  singer  must  have  a  beautiful  soul,  a  heart 
full  of  love.  How  was  he  to  contend  against  such  an  artist? 
How  could  a  woman  ever  cease  to  adore  him?  The  song 
must  pierce  her  soul  like  another  soul. 

The  poor  boy  was  as  much  overcome  by  poetic  feeling  as  by 
despair :  he  saw  himself  as  so  small  a  thing  !  This  ingenuous 
conviction  of  his  own  nothingness  was  to  be  read  in  his  face, 
mingling  with  his  admiration.  He  did  not  observe  Beatrix, 
who,  attracted  to  Calyste  by  the  contagion  of  genuine  feeling, 
pointed  him  out  by  a  glance  to  Mademoiselle  des  Touches. 

"  Oh  !  such  a  delightful  nature  !  "  said  Felicite.  "  Conti, 
you  will  never  receive  any  applause  to  compare  with  the 
homage  paid  you  by  this  boy.  Let  us  sing  a  trio.  Come, 
Beatrix,  my  dear." 

When  the  Marquise,  Camille,  and  Conti  had  returned  to 
the  piano,  Calyste  rose  unperceived,  flung  himself  on  a  sofa 
in  the  adjoining  bedroom,  of  which  the  door  was  open,  and 
remained  there  sunk  in  despair. 


PART  II. 

THE    DRAMA.      ' 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you,  my  boy?"  said  Claud 
Vignon,  stealing  quietly  in  after  hiirf  and  taking  his  hand. 
"You  are  in  love,  you  believe  yourself  scorned;  but  it  is  not 
so.  In  a  few  days  the  field  will  be  open  to  you,  you  will  be 
supreme  here,  and  be  loved  by  more  than  one  woman  ;  in 
fact,  if  you  know  how  to  manage  matters,  you  will  be  a  sultan 
here." 

"  What  are  you  saying?  "  cried  Calyste,  starting  to  his  feet 
and  dragging  Claud  away  into  the  library.  "Who  that  is 
here  loves  me  ?  " 

"Camille,"  said  Vignon. 

"Camille  loves  me?"  said  Calyste.      "And  what  of  you?" 

"I,"  said  Claud,  "I " 

He  paused.  Then  he  sat  down  and  rested  his  head  against 
a  pillow,  in  the  deepest  melancholy. 

"I  am  weary  of  life,"  he  went  on,  after  a  short  silence, 
"and  I  have  not  the  courage  to  end  it.  I  wish  I  were  mis- 
taken in  what  I  have  told  you  ;  but  within  the  last  few  days 
more  than  one  vivid  gleam  has  flashed  upon  me.  I  did  not 
wander  about  the  rocks  of  le  Croisic  for  my  amusement,  on 
my  soul  !  The  bitterness  of  my  tone  when,  on  my  return,  I 
found  you  talking  to  Camille,  had  its  source  in  the  depths  of 
my  wounded  self-respect.  I  will  have  an  explanation  presently 
with  Camille.  Two  minds  so  clear-sighted  as  hers  and  mine 
cannot  deceive  each  other.  Between  two  professional  duelists 
a  fight  is  soon  ended.  So  I  may  at  once  announce  my  de- 
parture. Yes,  I  shall  leave  les  Touches,  to-morrow  perhaps, 
with  Conti. 

"  When  we  are  no  longer  here,  some  strange — perhaps  ter- 

(131) 


132  BE  A  TRIX. 

rible — things  will  certainly  happen,  and  I  shall  be  sorry  not 
to  look  on  at  these  struggles  of  passion,  so  rare  in  France, 
and  so  dramatic  !  You  are  very  young  to  enter  on  so  perilous 
a  fight ;  I  am  interested  in  you.  But  for  the  deep  disgust  I 
feel  for  women,  I  would  stay  to  help  you  to  play  the  game ;  it 
is  difficult ;  you  may  lose  it ;  you  have  two  remarkable  women 
to  deal  with,  and  you  are  already  too  much  in  love  with  one 
to  make  use  of  the  other. 

"Beatrix  must  surely  have  some  tenacity  in  her  nature,  and 
Camille  has  magnanimity.  You,  perhaps,  like  some  fragile 
and  brittle  thing,  will  be  dashed  between  the  two  rocks,  swept 
away  by  the  torrent  of  passion.     Take  care." 

Calyste's  amazement  on  hearing  these  words  allowed  Claud 
Vignon  to  finish  his  speech  and  leave  the  lad,  who  remained 
in  the  position  of  a  traveler  in  the  Alps  to  whom  his  guide 
has  proved  the  depth  of  an  abyss  by  dropping  in  a  stone. 

He  had  heard  from  Claud  himself  that  Camille  loved  him, 
Calyste,  at  the  moment  when  he  knew  that  his  love  for  Beatrix 
would  end  only  with  his  life.  There  was  something  in  the 
situation  too  much  for  such  a  guileless  young  soul.  Crushed 
by  immense  regret  that  weighed  upon  him  for  the  past,  killed 
by  the  perplexities  of  the  present,  between  Beatrix,  whom  he 
loved,  and  Camille,  whom  he  no  longer  loved,  when  Claud  said 
that  she  loved  him,  the  poor  youth  was  desperate ;  he  sat 
undecided,  lost  in  thought.  He  vainly  sought  to  guess  the 
reasons  for  which  Felicite  had  rejected  his  devotion,  to  go  to 
Paris  and  accept  that  of  Claud  Vignon. 

Now  and  again  Madame  de  Rochefide's  voice  came  to  his 
ear,  pure  and  clear,  reviving  the  violent  excitement  from 
which  he  had  fled  in  leaving  the  drawing-room.  Several 
times  he  could  hardly  master  himself  so  far  as  to  restrain  a 
fierce  desire  to  seize  her  and  snatch  her  away.  What  would 
become  of  him?  Could  he  ever  come  again  to  les  Touches? 
Knowing  that  Camille  loved  him,  how  could  he  here  worship 
Beatrix?     He  could  find  no  issue  from  his  difficulties. 


BE  A  TRIX.  133 

Gradually  silence  fell  on  the  house.  Without  heeding  it, 
he  heard  the  shutting  of  doors.  Then  suddenly  he  counted 
the  twelve  strokes  of  midnight  told  by  the  clock  in  the  next 
room,  where  the  voices  of  Camille  and  Claud  now  roused 
him  from  the  numbing  contemplation  of  the  future.  A  light 
shone  there  amid  the  darkness.  Before  he  could  show  him- 
self to  them,  he  heard  these  dreadful  words  spoken  by  Claud 
Vignon. 

"You  came  back  from  Paris  madly  in  love  with  Calyste," 
he  was  saying  to  Felicite.  "But  you  were  appalled  at  the 
consequences  of  such  a  passion  at  your  age  ;  it  would  lead  you 
into  a  gulf,  a  hell — to  suicide  perhaps.  Love  can  exist  only 
in  the  belief  that  it  is  eternal,  and  you  could  foresee,  a  few 
paces  before  you  in  life,  a  terrible  parting — weariness  and  old 
age  putting  a  dreadful  end  to  a  beautiful  poem.  You  remem- 
ber Adolphe,  the  disastrous  termination  of  the  loves  of  Mad- 
ame de  Stael  and  Benjamin  Constant,  who  were,  nevertheless, 
much  better  matched  in  age  than  you  and  Calyste. 

"  So,  then,  you  took  me,  as  men  take  fascines,  to  raise  an 
intrenchment  between  yourself  and  the  enemy.  But  while 
you  tried  to  attach  me  to  les  Touches,  was  it  not  that  you 
might  spend  your  days  in  secret  worship  of  your  divinity? 
But  to  carry  out  such  a  scheme,  at  once  unworthy  and  sub- 
lime, you  should  have  chosen  a  common  man  or  a  man  so 
absorbed  by  lofty  thought  that  he  would  be  easily  deceived. 
You  fancied  that  I  was  simple  and  as  easy  to  cheat  as  a  man 
of  genius.  I  am,  it  would  seem,  no  more  than  a  clever  man  . 
I  saw  through  you.  When  yesterday  I  sang  the  praises  of 
women  of  your  age  and  explained  to  you  why  Calyste  loved 
you,  do  you  suppose  that  I  thought  all  your  ecstatic  looks — 
brilliant,  enchanting — were  meant  for  me  ?  Had  I  not  al- 
ready read  your  soul?  The  eyes,  indeed,  were  fixed  on  mine, 
but  the  heart  throbbed  for  Calyste.  You  have  never  been 
loved,  my  poor  Maupin  ;  and  you  never  will  be  now,  after 
denying  yourself  the  beautiful  fruit  which  chance  put  in  your 


134  BEATRIX. 

way  at  the  very  gates  of  woman's  hell,  which  must  close  at 
the  touch  of  the  figure  50." 

"And  why  has  love  always  avoided  me?"  she  asked,  in  a 
broken  voice.     "You  who  know  everything,  tell  me." 

"Why,  you  are  unamiable,"  said  he;  "  you  will  not  yield 
to  love,  you  want  it  to  yield  to  you.  You  can  perhaps  be  led 
into  the  mischief  and  spirit  of  a  school-boy ;  but  you  have  no 
youth  of  heart ;  your  mind  is  too  deep,  you  never  were  artless, 
and  you  cannot  begin  now.  Your  charm  lies  in  mystery ;  it 
is  abstract,  and  not  practical.  And,  again,  your  power  repels 
very  powerful  natures  ;  they  dread  a  conflict.  Your  strength 
may  attract  young  souls,  which,  like  Calyste's,  love  to  feel 
protected ;  but,  in  the  long  run,  it  is  fatiguing.  You  are 
superior,  sublime !  You  must  accept  the  disadvantages  of 
these  two  qualities  ;  they  are  wearisome." 

"What  a  verdict!"  cried  Camille.  "Can  I  never  be  a 
woman?     Am  I  a  monster?  " 

"Possibly,"  said  Claud. 

"  We  shall  see,"  cried  the  woman,  stung  to  the  quick. 

"  Good-night,  my  dear.  I  leave  to-morrow.  I  owe  you 
no  grudge,  Camille ;  I  think  you  the  greatest  of  women ;  but 
if  I  should  consent  to  play  the  part  any  longer  of  a  screen  or 
a  curtain,"  said  Claud,  with  two  marked  inflexions  of  his 
voice,  "  you  would  despise  me  utterly.  We  can  part  now 
without  grief  or  remorse;  we  have  no  happiness  to  mourn 
for,  no  hopes  to  disappoint. 

"To  you,  as  to  some  infinitely  rare  men  of  genius,  love  is 
not  what  nature  made  it — a  vehement  necessity,  with  acute 
but  transient  delights  attached  to  its  satisfaction,  and  then 
death ;  you  regard  it  as  what  Christianity  has  made  it :  an  ideal 
realm  full  of  noble  sentiments,  of  immense  small  things, 
of  poetry  and  spiritual  sensations,  of  sacrifices,  flowers  of 
morality,  enchanting  harmonies,  placed  far  above  all  vulgar 
grossness,  but  whither  two  beings  joined  to  be  one  angel  are 
carried  up  on  the  wings  of  pleasure.     This  was  what  I  hoped 


BE  A  TRIX.  135 

for ;  I  thought  I  held  one  of  the  keys  which  open  the  door 
that  is  shut  to  so  many  persons,  and  through  which  we  soar 
into  infinitude.  You  were  there  already !  And  so  I  was 
deceived. 

"I  am  going  back  to  misery  in  my  vast  prison,  Paris. 
Such  a  deception  at  the  beginning  of  my  career  would  have 
been  enough  to  make  me  flee  from  woman ;  now,  it  fills  my 
soul  with  such  disenchantment  as  casts  me  for  ever  into  ap- 
palling solitude ;  I  shall  be  destitute  even  of  the  faith  which 
helped  the  holy  fathers  to  people  it  with  sacred  visions. 
This,  my  dear  Camille,  is  what  a  superior  nature  brings  us  to. 
We  may  each  of  us  sing  the  terrible  chant  that  a  poet  has  put 
into  the  mouth  of  Moses  addressing  the  Almighty — 

"  '  O  Lord !  Thou  hast  made  me  powerful  and  alone ! '  " 

At  this  moment  Calyste  came  in. 

"  I  ought  to  let  you  know  that  I  am  here,"  said  he. 

Mademoiselle  des  Touches  looked  absolutely  terrified ;  a 
sudden  color  flushed  her  calm  features  with  a  fiery  red.  All 
through  the  scene  she  was  handsomer  than  she  had  ever  been 
in  her  life. 

"We  thought  you  had  gone,  Calyste,"  said  Claud;  "but 
this  involuntary  indiscretion  on  both  sides  will  have  done  no 
harm ;  perhaps  you  will  feel  more  free  at  les  Touches  now 
that  you  know  Felicite  so  completely.  Her  silence  shows  me 
that  I  was  not  mistaken  as  to  the  part  she  intended  that  I 
should  play.  She  loves  you,  as  I  told  you  ;  but  she  loves  you 
for  yourself  and  not  for  herself — a  feeling  which  few  women 
are  fitted  to  conceive  of  or  to  cling  to :  very  few  of  them 
know  the  delights  of  pain  kept  alive  by  desire.  It  is  one  of 
the  grander  passions  reserved  for  men ;  but  she  is  somewhat 
of  a  man,"  he  added,  with  a  smile.  "Your  passion  for 
Beatrix  will  torture  her  and  make  her  happy,  both  at  once." 

Tears  rose  to  Mademoiselle  des  Touches'  eyes ;  she  dared 
not    look  either  at  the   merciless   Claud   or   the    ingenuous 


136  BE  A  TRIX. 

Calyste.  She  was  frightened  at  having  been  understood  J 
she  had  not  supposed  that  any  man,  whatever  his  gifts, 
could  divine  such  a  torment  of  refined  feeling,  such  lofty 
heroism  as  hers.  And  Calyste,  seeing  her  so  humiliated  at 
finding  her  magnanimity  betrayed,  sympathized  with  the 
agitation  of  the  woman  he  had  placed  so  high,  and  whom 
he  beheld  so  stricken.  By  an  irresistible  impulse,  he  fell  at 
Camille's  feet  and  kissed  her  hands,  hiding  his  tear-washed 
face  in  them. 

"Claud!"  she  cried,  "do  not  desert  me;  what  will  be- 
come of  me?" 

"What  have  you  to  fear?"  replied  the  critic.  "Calyste 
already  loves  the  Marquise  like  a  madman.  You  can  cer- 
tainly have  no  stronger  barrier  between  him  and  yourself 
than  this  passion  fanned  into  life  by  your  own  act.  It  is 
quite  as  effectual  as  I  could  be.  Yesterday  there  was  danger 
for  you  and  for  him  ;  but  to-day  everything  will  give  you 
maternal  joys,"  and  he  gave  her  a  mocking  glance.  "You 
will  be  proud  of  his  triumphs." 

Felicite  looked  at  Calyste,  who,  at  these  words,  raised  his 
head  with  a  hasty  movement.  Claud  Vignon  was  suffi- 
ciently revenged  by  the  pleasure  he  took  in  seeing  their 
confusion. 

"You  pushed  him  toward  Madame  de  Rochefide,"  Vig- 
non went  on ;  "  he  is  now  under  the  spell.  You  have  dug 
your  own  grave.  If  you  had  but  trusted  yourself  to  me, 
you  would  have  avoided  the  disasters  that  await  you." 

"Disasters!"  cried  Camille  Maupin,  raising  Calyste's 
head  to  the  level  of  her  own,  kissing  his  hair  and  wetting 
it  with  her  tears.  "No,  Calyste.  Forget  all  you  have  just 
heard,  and  count  me  for  nothing  !  " 

She  stood  up  in  front  of  the  two  men,  drawn  to  her  full 
height,  quelling  them  by  the  lightnings  that  flashed  from  her 
eyes  in  which  all  her  soul  shone. 

"While  Claud  was  speaking,"  she  went  on,  "I  saw  all 


BEATRIX.  157 

the  beauty,  the  dignity  of  hopeless  love ;  is  it  not  the 
only  sentiment  that  brings  us  near  to  God  ?  Do  not  love 
me,  Calyste ;  but  I — I  will  love  you  as  no  other  woman 
can  ever  love  !  " 

It  was  the  wildest  cry  that  ever  a  wounded  eagle  sent 
out  from  his  eyrie.  Claud,  on  one  knee,  took  her  hand  and 
kissed  it. 

"Now  go,  my  dear  boy,"  said  Mademoiselle  des  Touches 
to  Calyste  ;   "  your  mother  may  be  uneasy." 

Calyste  returned  to  Guerande  at  a  leisurely  pace,  turning 
around  to  see  the  light  which  shone  from  the  windows  of 
Beatrix's  rooms.  He  was  himself  surprised  that  he  felt  so 
little  pity  for  Camille  ;  he  was  almost  annoyed  with  her  for 
having  deprived  him  of  fifteen  months  of  happiness.  And 
again,  now  and  then,  he  felt  the  same  thrill  in  himself  that 
Camille  had  just  caused  him,  he  felt  the  tears  she  had  shed 
on  his  hair,  he  suffered  in  her  suffering,  he  fancied  he  could 
hear  the  moans — for,  no  doubt,  she  was  moaning — of  this 
wonderful  woman  for  whom  he  had  so  longed  a  few  days 
since. 

As  he  opened  the  courtyard  gate  at  home,  where  all  was 
silent,  he  saw  through  the  window  his  mother  working  by 
the  primitive  lamp  while  waiting  for  him.  Tears  rose  to  his 
eyes  at  the  sight. 

"What  more  has  happened?"  asked  Fanny,  her  face  ex- 
pressive of  terrible  anxiety.  Calyste's  only  reply  was  to 
clasp  his  mother  in  his  arms  and  kiss  her  cheeks,  her  fore- 
head, her  hair,  with  the  passionate  effusion  which  delights  a 
mother,  infusing  into  her  the  subtle  fires  of  the  life  she 
gave. 

"  It  is  you  that  I  love  !  "  said  Calyste  to  his  mother,  blush- 
ing and  almost  shamefaced;  "you  who  live  for  me  alone, 
whom  I  would  fain  make  happy." 

"  But  you  are  not  in  your  usual  frame  of  mind,  my  child," 


138  BEATRIX. 

said  the  Baroness,  looking  at  her  son.  "What  has  hap- 
pened ?" 

"  Camille  loves  me,"  said  he;  "and  I  no  longer  love 
her." 

The  Baroness  drew  him  toward  her  and  kissed  him  on  the 
forehead,  and  in  the  deep  silence  of  the  gloomy  old  tapes- 
tried room  he  could  hear  the  rapid  beating  of  his  mother's 
heart.  The  Irishwoman  was  jealous  of  Camille,  and  had 
suspected  the  truth.  While  awaiting  her  son  night  after 
night  she  had  studied  that  woman's  passion  ;  led  by  the  light 
of  persistent  meditation,  she  had  entered  into  Camille's 
heart ;  and  without  being  able  to  account  for  it,  she  had 
understood  that  in  that  unwedded  soul  there  was  a  sort  of 
motherly  affection.  Calyste's  story  horrified  this  simple  and 
guileless  mother. 

"  Well,"  said  she,  after  a  pause,  "  love  Madame  de  Roche- 
fide;  she  will  cause  me  no  sorrow." 

Beatrix  was  not  free  ;  she  could  not  upset  any  of  the  plans 
they  had  made  for  Calyste's  happiness,  at  least  so  Fanny 
thought ;  she  saw  in  her  a  sort  of  daughter-in-law  to  love,  and 
not  a  rival  mother  to  contend  with. 

"  But  Beatrix  will  never  love  me  !  "  cried  Calyste. 

"  Perhaps,"  replied  the  Baroness,  with  a  knowing  air. 
"  Did  you  not  say  that  she  is  to  be  alone  to-morrow  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"Well,  my  child,"  said  the  mother,  coloring,  "jealousy 
lurks  in  all  our  hearts,  but  I  did  not  know  that  I  should  ever 
find  it  at  the  bottom  of  my  own,  for  I  did  not  think  that  any 
one  would  try  to  rob  me  of  my  Calyste's  affection  !  "  She 
sighed.  "  I  fancied,"  she  went  on,  "  that  marriage  would  be 
to  you  what  it  was  to  me.  What  lights  you  have  thrown  on 
my  mind  during  these  two  months  !  What  colors  are  reflected 
on  your  very  natural  passion,  my  poor  darling!  Well,  still 
seem  to  love  your  Mademoiselle  des  Touches ;  the  Marquise 
will  be  jealous  of  her  and  will  be  yours." 


BE  A  IRIX.  139 

"  Oh,  my  sweet  mother,  Camille  would  never  have  told  me 
that  !  "  cried  Calyste,  taking  his  mother  by  the  waist  and 
kissing  her  on  the  neck. 

"You  make  me  very  wicked,  you  bad  child,"  said  she, 
quite  happy  at  seeing  the  beaming  face  hope  gave  to  her  son, 
who  gaily  went  up  the  winding  stairs. 

Next  morning  Calyste  desired  Gasselin  to  stand  on  the 
road  from  Guerande  to  Saint-Nazaire  and  watch  for  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches'  carriage  ;  then,  as  it  went  past,  he  was 
to  count  the  persons  in  it. 

Gasselin  returned  just  as  the  family  had  sat  down  together 
at  breakfast. 

"  What  now  can  have  happened?"  said  Mademoiselle  du 
Guenic  ;  "  Gasselin  is  running  as  if  Guerande  were  burning." 

"He  must  have  caught  the  rat,"  said  Mariotte,  who  was 
bringing  in  the  coffee,  milk,  and  toast. 

"  He  is  coming  from  the  town  and  not  from  the  garden," 
replied  the  blind  woman. 

"But  the  rat's  hole  is  behind  the  wall  to  the  front  by  the 
street,"  said  Mariotte. 

"  Monsieur  le  Chevalier,  there  were  five  of  them ;  four 
inside  and  the  coachman." 

"  Two  ladies  on  the  back  seat  ?  "  asked  Calyste. 

"And  two  gentlemen  in  front,"  replied  Gasselin. 

"  Saddle  my  father's  horse,  ride  after  them  ;  be  at  Saint- 
Nazaire  by  the  time  the  boat  starts  for  Paimbceuf ;  and  if  the 
two  men  go  on  board,  come  back  and  tell  me  as  fast  as  you 
can  gallop." 

Gasselin  went. 

"Why,  nephew,  you  have  the  very  devil  in  you!"  ex- 
claimed old  Aunt  Zephirine. 

"Let  him  please  himself,  sister,"  cried  the  Baron.  "He 
was  as  gloomy  as  an  owl,  and  now  he  is  as  merry  as  a  lark." 

"  Perhaps  you  told  him  that  our  dear  Charlotte  was  com- 
ing," said  the  old  lady,  turning  to  her  sister-in-law. 


140  BEATRIX. 

"No,"  replied  the  Baroness. 

"  I  thought  he  might  wish  to  go  to  meet  her,"  said  Made- 
moiselle du  Guenic  slily. 

"If  Charlotte  is  to  stay  three  months  with  her  aunt  he  has 
time  enough  to  see  her  in,"  replied  the  Baroness. 

"Why,  sister,  what  has  occurred  since  yesterday,"  asked 
the  old  lady.  "You  were  so  delighted  to  think  that  Made- 
moiselle de  Pen-Hoel  was  going  this  morning  to  fetch  her 
niece." 

"Jacqueline  wants  me  to  marry  Charlotte  to  snatch  me  from 
perdition,  aunt,"  said  Calyste,  laughing,  and  giving  his  mother 
a  look  of  intelligence.  "  I  was  on  the  mall  this  morning  when 
Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  was  talking  to  Monsieur  du  Halga ; 
she  did  not  reflect  that  it  would  be  far  worse  perdition  for  me 
to  be  married  at  my  age." 

"It  is  written  above,"  cried  the  old  aunt,  interrupting 
Calyste,  "  that  I  am  to  die  neither  happy  nor  at  peace.  I 
should  have  liked  to  see  our  family  continued,  and  some  of 
our  lands  redeemed — but  nothing  of  the  kind  !  Can  you,  my 
fine  nephew,  put  anything  in  the  scale  to  outweigh  such  duties 
as  these?" 

"Why,"  said  the  Baron,  "can  Mademoiselle  des  Touches 
hinder  Calyste  from  marrying  in  due  course?  I  must  goto 
see  her." 

"I  can  assure  you,  father,  that  Felicite  will  never  be  an 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  my  marriage." 

"  I  cannot  make  head  or  tail  of  it  !  "  said  the  blind  woman, 
who  knew  nothing  of  her  nephew's  sudden  passion  for  the 
Marquise  de  Rochefide. 

The  mother  kept  her  son's  secret ;  in  such  matters  silence 
is  instinctive  in  all  women.  The  old  aunt  sank  into  deep 
meditation,  listening  with  all  her  might,  spying  every  voice, 
every  sound,  to  guess  the  mystery  they  were  evidently  keeping 
from  her. 

Gasselin  soon  returned,  and  told  his  young  master  that  he. 


Spare  the  horses,  my  boy — they  have  twelve 
leagues  before  them." 


BE  A  TR1X.  141 

had  not  needed  to  go  so  far  as  Saint-Nazaire  to  learn  that 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches  and  the  lady  would  return  alone ; 
he  had  heard  it  in  town,  from  Bernus  the  carrier,  who  had 
taken  charge  of  the  gentlemen's  baggage. 

"  They  will  come  back  alone ?  "  said  Calyste.  "Bring  out 
my  horse." 

Gasselin  supposed  from  his  young  master's  voice  that  there 
was  something  serious  on  hand  ;  he  saddled  both  the  horses, 
loaded  the  pistols  without  saying  anything,  and  dressed  to 
ride  out  with  Calyste.  Calyste  was  so  delighted  to  know  that 
Claud  and  Gennaro  were  gone  that  he  never  thought  of  the 
party  he  would  meet  at  Saint-Nazaire ;  he  thought  only  of  the 
pleasure  of  escorting  the  Marquise.  He  took  his  old  father's 
hands  and  pressed  them  affectionately,  he  kissed  his  mother, 
and  put  his  arm  round  his  old  aunt's  waist. 

"Well,  at  any  rate  I  like  him  better  thus  than  when  he  is 
sad,"  said  old  Zephirine.  • 

"Where  are  you  off  to,  chevalier?"  asked  his  father. 

"To  Saint-Nazaire." 

"  The  deuce  you  are  !  And  when  is  the  wedding  to  be?" 
said  the  Baron,  who  thought  he  was  in  a  hurry  to  see  Charlotte 
de  Kergarouet.  "I  should  like  to  be  a  grandfather;  it  is 
high  time." 

When  Gasselin  showed  his  evident  intention  of  riding  out 
with  Calyste,  it  occurred  to  the  young  man  that  he  might 
return  in  Camille's  carriage  with  Beatrix,  leaving  his  horse 
in  Gasselin's  care,  and  he  clapped  the  man  on  the  shoulder, 
saying — 

"  That  was  well  thought  of." 

"So  I  should  think,"  replied  Gasselin. 

"Spare  the  horses,  my  boy,"  said  his  father,  coming  out 
on  the  steps  with  Fanny;  "they  have  twelve  leagues  before 
them." 

Calyste  exchanged  looks  full  of  meaning  with  his  mother 
and  was  gone. 


142  BE  A  TRIX. 

"Dearest  treasure!"  said  she,  seeing  him  bend  his  head 
under  the  top  of  the  gate. 

"God  preserve  him!"  replied  the  Baron,  "for  we  shall 
never  make  another." 

This  little  speech,  in  the  rather  coarse  taste  of  a  country 
gentleman,  made  the  Baroness  shiver. 

"  My  nephew  is  not  so  much  in  love  with  Charlotte  as  to  rush 
to  meet  her,"  said  old  mademoiselle  to  Mariotte,  who  was 
clearing  the  table. 

"  Oh,  a  fine  lady  has  come  to  les  Touches,  a  Marquise,  and 
he  is  running  after  her.  Well,  well,  he  is  young ! "  said 
Mariotte. 

"Those  women  will  be  the  death  of  him,"  said  Made- 
moiselle du  Guenic. 

"That  won't  kill  him,  mademoiselle,  quite  the  contrary," 
replied  Mariotte,  who  seemed  quite  happy  in  Calyste's  hap- 
piness. 

Calyste  was  riding  at  a  pace  th'at  might  have  killed  his 
horse,  when  Gasselin  very  happily  asked  his  master  whether 
he  wished  to  arrive  before  the  departure  of  the  boat;  this  was 
by  no  means  his  purpose  ;  he  had  no  wish  to  be  seen  by  either 
Conti  or  Vignon.  The  young  man  reined  in  his  horse  and 
looked  complacently  at  the  double  furrow  traced  by  the  wheels 
of  the  carriage  on  the  sandy  parts  of  the  road.  He  was  wildly 
gay  merely  at  the  thought  :  "She  passed  this  way;  she  will 
come  back  this  way ;  her  eyes  rested  on  those  woods,  on  these 
trees  !  " 

"  What  a  pretty  road  !  "  said  he  to  Gasselin,  looking  around 
admiringly. 

"Yes,  sir,  Brittany  is  the  finest  country  in  the  world,"  re- 
plied the  servant.  "Are  there  such  flowers  in  the  hedges 
or  green  lanes  that  wind  like  this  one  anywhere  else  to  be 
found?" 

"Nowhere,  Gasselin." 

"  Here  comes  Bernus'  carriage,'*  said  Gasselin. 


BEATRIX.  143 

"  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  will  be  in  it  with  her  niece ; 
let  us  hide,"  said  Calyste. 

"  Hide  here,  sir  !  are  you  crazy  ?  We  are  in  the  midst  of 
the  sands." 

The  carriage,  which  was  in  fact  crawling  up  a  sandy  hill 
above  Saint-Nazaire,  presently  appeared,  in  all  the  artless 
simplicity  of  rude  Breton  construction.  To  Calyste's  great 
astonishment,  the  conveyance  was  full. 

"  We  have  left  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  and  her  sister 
and  her  niece  in  a  great  pother,"  said  the  driver  to  Gasselin ; 
"all  the  places  had  been  taken  by  the  custom-house." 

"  I  am  done  for  !  "  cried  Calyste. 

The  vehicle  was  in  fact  full  of  custom-house  men,  on  their 
way,  no  doubt,  to  relieve  those  in  charge  at  the  salt-marshes. 

When  Calyste  reached  the  little  esplanade  surrounding  the 
church  of  Saint-Nazaire,  whence  there  is  a  view  of  Paimboeuf 
and  of  the  majestic  estuary  of  the  Loire  where  it  struggles  with 
the  tide,  he  found  Camille  and  the  Marquise  waving  their 
handkerchiefs  to  bid  a  last  farewell  to  the  two  passengers  borne 
away  by  the  steam  packet.  Beatrix  was  quite  bewitching,  her 
face  tenderly  shaded  by  the  reflection  from  a  rice-straw  hat  on 
which  poppies  were  lightly  piled,  tied  by  a  scarlet  ribbon  ;  in 
a  flowered  India-muslin  dress,  one  little  slender  foot  put  for- 
ward in  a  green-gaitered  shoe,  leaning  on  her  slight  parasol- 
stick,  and  waving  her  well-gloved  hand.  Nothing  is  more 
strikingly  effective  than  a  woman  on  a  rock,  like  a  statue  on 
its  pedestal. 

Conti  could  see  Calyste  go  up  to  Camille. 

"I  thought,"  said  the  youth  to  Mademoiselle  des  Touches, 
"that  you  two  ladies  would  be  returning  alone." 

"That  was  very  nice  of  you,  Calyste,"  she  replied,  taking 
his  hand.  Beatrix  looked  around,  glanced  at  her  young 
adorer,  and  gave  him  the  most  imperious  flash  at  her  com- 
mand. A  smile  that  the  Marquise  caught  on  Canaille's  eloquent 
lips  made  her  feel   the  vulgarity  of  this  impulse  worthy  of  a 


144  BEATRIX. 

mere  bourgeoise.  Madame  de  Rochefide  then  said  with  a 
smile  to  Calyste — 

"And  was  it  not  rather  impertinent  to  suppose  that  I  could 
bore  Camille  on  the  way?" 

"  My  dear,  one  man  for  two  widows  is  not  much  in  the 
way,"  said  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  taking  Calyste's  arm, 
and  leaving  Beatrix  to  gaze  after  the  boat. 

At  this  instant  Calyste  heard  in  the  street  of  what  must  be 
called  the  port  of  Saint-Nazaire  the  voices  of  Mademoiselle 
de  Pen-Hoel,  Charlotte,  and  Gasselin,  all  three  chattering 
like  magpies.  The  old  maid  was  catechising  Gasselin,  and 
wanted  to  know  what  had  brought  him  and  his  master  to 
Saint-Nazaire  ;  Mademoiselle  des  Touches'  carriage  had  made 
a  commotion. 

Before  the  lad  could  escape,  Charlotte  had  caught  sight  of 
him. 

"There  is  Calyste  !  "  cried  the  girl,  pointing  him  out  to 
her  companions. 

"Go  and  offer  them  my  carriage;  their  woman  can  sit  by 
my  coachman,"  said  Camille,  who  knew  that  Madame  de  Ker- 
garouet  with  her  daughter  and  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel 
had  failed  to  get  places. 

Calyste,  who  could  not  avoid  obeying  Camille,  went  to 
deliver  this  message.  As  soon  as  she  knew  that  she  would 
have  to  ride  with  the  Marquise  de  Rochefide  and  the  famous 
Camille  Maupin,  Madame  de  Kergarouet  ignored  her  elder 
sister's  objections ;  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  refused  to  avail 
herself  of  what  she  called  the  devil's  chariot.  At  Nantes 
people  lived  in  rather  more  civilized  latitudes  than  at  Guer- 
ande ;  Camille  was  admired  ;  she  was  regarded  as  the  Muse 
of  Brittany  and  an  honor  to  the  country ;  she  excited  as  much 
curiosity  as  jealousy.  The  absolution  granted  her  in  Paris  by 
the  fashionable  world  was  consecrated  by  Mademoiselle  des 
Touches'  fine  fortune,  and  perhaps  by  her  former  successes  at 


BEATRIX.  145 

Nantes,  which  was  proud  of  having  been  the  birthplace  of 
Camiile  Maupin. 

So  the  Viscountess,  crazy  with  curiosity,  dragged  away  her 
old  sister,  turning  a  deaf  ear  to  her  jeremiads. 

"  Good-morning,  Calyste,"  said  little  Charlotte. 

"Good-morning,  Charlotte,"  replied  Calyste,  but  he  did 
not  offer  her  his  arm. 

Both  speechless  with  surprise,  she  at  ins  coldness,  he  at  his 
own  cruelty,  they  went  up  the  hollow  ravine  that  is  called  a 
street  at  Saint-Nazaire,  following  the  two  sisters  in  silence. 
In  an  instant  the  girl  of  sixteen  saw  the  castle  in  the  air  which 
her  romantic  hopes  had  built  and  furnished  crumble  into 
ruins.  She  and  Calyste  had  so  constantly  played  together 
during  their  childhood,  they  had  been  so  intimately  connected, 
that  she  imagined  her  future  life  secure.  She  had  hurried  on, 
carried  away  by  heedless  happiness,  like  a  bird  rushing  down 
on  a  field  of  wheat ;  she  was  checked  in  her  flight  without 
being  able  to  imagine  what  the  obstacle  could  be. 

"What  is  the  matter,  Calyste?"  she  asked,  taking  his 
hand. 

"  Nothing,"  he  replied,  withdrawing  his  hand  with  terrible 
haste  as  he  thought  of  his  aunt's  schemes  and  Mademoiselle 
de  Pen-HoeTs. 

Tears  filled  Charlotte's  eyes.  She  looked  at  the  handsome 
youth  without  animosity ;  but  she  was  to  feel  the  first  pangs 
of  jealousy  and  know  the  dreadful  rage  of  rivalry  at  the  sight 
of  the  two  Parisian  beauties,  which  led  her  to  suspect  the 
cause  of  Calyste's  coldness. 

Charlotte  de  Kergarouet  was  of  middle  height ;  she  had 
rustic  rosy  cheeks,  a  round  face  with  wide-awake  black  eyes 
that  affected  intelligence,  a  quantity  of  brown  hair,  a  round 
waist,  flat  back,  and  thin  arms,  and  the  crisp,  decided  tone 
of  speech  adopted  by  country-bred  girls  who  do  not  wish  to 
seem  simpletons.  She  was  the  spoiled  child  of  the  family  in 
consequence  of  her  aunt's  preference  for  her.  At  this  moment 
10 


146  BEATRIX. 

she  was  wearing  the  plaid  tweed  cloak  lined  with  green  silk 
that  she  had  put  on  for  the  passage  in  the  steamboat.  Her 
traveling  gown  of  cheap  stuff,  with  a  chaste,  gathered  body 
and  a  finely  pleated  collar,  would  presently  strike  her  as  being 
hideous  in  comparison  with  the  fresh  morning  dress  worn  by 
Beatrix  and  Camille.  She  would  be  painfully  conscious  of 
stockings  soiled  on  the  rocks  and  the  boats  she  had  jumped 
into,  of  old  leather  shoes,  chosen  especially  that  there  might 
be  nothing  good  to  spoil  on  the  journey,  as  is  the  manner  and 
custom  of  provincial  folk. 

As  to  the  Vicomtesse  de  Kergarouet,  she  was  typically  pro- 
vincial. Tall,  lean,  faded,  full  of  covert  pretentiousness 
which  only  showed  when  it  was  wounded,  a  great  talker,  and 
by  dint  of  talk  picking  up  a  few  ideas  as  a  billiard-player 
makes  a  cannon,  which  gave  her  a  reputation  for  brilliancy; 
trying  to  snub  Parisians  by  a  display  of  blunt  country  shrewd- 
ness, and  an  assumption  of  perfect  contentment  constantly 
paraded ;  stooping  in  the  hope  of  being  picked  up,  and  furi- 
ous at  being  left  on  her  knees  ;  fishing  for  compliments,  as 
the  English  have  it,  and  not  always  catching  them  ;  dressing 
in  a  style  at  once  exaggerated  and  slatternly;  fancying  that 
a  lack  of  politeness  was  lofty  impertinence,  and  that  she  could 
distress  people  greatly  by  paying  them  no  attention  ;  refusing 
things  she  wished  for  to  have  them  offered  a  second  time  and 
pressed  on  her  beyond  reason  ;  her  head  full  of  extinct  sub- 
jects, and  much  astonished  to  find  herself  behind  the  times; 
finally,  hardly  able  to  abstain  for  one  hour  from  dragging  in 
Nantes,  and  the  small  lions  of  Nantes,  and  the  gossip  of  the 
upper  ten  of  Nantes  ;  complaining  of  Nantes,  and  criticising 
Nantes,  and  then  regarding  as  a  personal  affront  the  concur- 
rence extorted  from  the  politeness  of  those  who  rashly  agreed 
with  all  she  said. 

Her  manners,  her  speech,  and  her  ideas  had  to  some  extent 
rubbed  off  on  her  four  daughters. 

To  meet  Camille    Maupin   and    Madame   de   Rochefide! 


BE  A  TRIX.  14? 

Here  wa.i  fame  for  the  future  and  matter  for  a  hundred  con- 
versations !  She  marched  on  the  church  as  if  to  take  it  by 
storm,  flourishing  her  handkerchief,  which  she  unfolded  to 
show  the  corners  ponderously  embroidered  at  home,  and 
trimmed  with  worn-out  lace.  She  had  a  rather  stalwart  gait, 
which  did  not  matter  in  a  woman  of  seven-and-forty. 

"Monsieur  le  Chevalier,"  said  she,  and  she  pointed  to 
Calyste,  who  was  following  sulkily  enough  with  Charlotte, 
"has  informed  us  of  your  amiable  offer;  but  my  sister,  my 
daughter,  and  I  fear  we  shall  incommode  you." 

"Not  I,  sister;  I  shall  not  inconvenience  these  ladies," 
said  the  old  maid  sharply.  "  I  can  surely  find  a  horse  in 
Saint-Nazaire  to  carry  me  home." 

Camille  and  Beatrix  exchanged  sidelong  looks,  which  Ca- 
lyste noted,  and  that  glance  was  enough  to  annihilate  every 
memory  of  his  youth,  all  his  belief  in  the  Kergarouet-Pen- 
Hoels,  and  to  wreck  for  ever  the  schemes  laid  by  the  two 
families. 

"  Five  can  sit  quite  easily  in  the  carriage,"  replied  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches,  on  whom  Jacqueline  had  turned  her 
back.  "  Even  if  we  were  horribly  squeezed,  which  is  impos- 
sible, as  you  are  all  so  slight,  I  should  be  amply  compensated 
by  the  pleasure  of  doing  a  service  to  friends  of  Calyste's. 
Your  maid,  madame,  will  find  a  seat ;  and  your  bundles,  if 
you  have  any,  can  be  put  in  the  rumble ;  I  have  no  servant 
with  me." 

The  Viscountess  was  profusely  grateful,  and  blamed  her 
sister  Jacqueline,  who  had  been  in  such  a  hurry  for  her  niece 
that  she  would  not  give  her  time  to  travel  by  land  in  their 
carriage  ;  to  be  sure,  the  post-road  was  not  only  longer,  but 
expensive  ;  she  must  return  immediately  to  Nantes,  where  she 
had  left  three  more  little  kittens  eager  to  have  her  back  again 
— and  she  stroked  her  daughter's  chin.  But  Charlotte  put 
on  a  little  victimized  air  as  she  looked  up  at  her  mother, 
which  made  it  seem  likely  that  the  Viscountess  bored  her  four 


148  BE  A  TRIX. 

daughters  most  consumedly  by  trotting  them  out  as  persist- 
ently as,  in  "Tristram  Shandy,"  Corporal  Trim  puts  his 
cap  on. 

"You  are  a  happy  mother,  and  you  must "  Camille 

began ;  but  she  broke  off,  remembering  that  Beatrix  must 
have  deserted  her  boy  to  follow  Conti. 

"  Oh  !  "  said  the  Viscountess,  "  though  it  is  my  misfortune 
to  spend  my  life  in  the  country  and  at  Nantes,  I  have  the 
comfort  of  knowing  that  my  children  adore  me.  Have  you 
any  children?"  she  asked  Camille. 

"I  am  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,"  replied  Camille. 
"Madame  is  the  Marquise  de  Rochefide." 

"Then  you  are  to  be  pitied  for  not  knowing  the  greatest 
happiness  we  poor  mere  women  can  have.  Is  it  not  so, 
madame?"  said  she  to  the  Marquise,  to  remedy  her  blunder. 
"But  you  have  many  compensations." 

A  hot  tear  welled  up  in  Beatrix's  eyes ;  she  turned  hastily 
away  and  went  to  the  clumsy  parapet  at  the  edge  of  the  rock, 
whither  Calyste  followed  her. 

"Madame,"  said  Camille  in  a  low  voice  to  Madame  de 
Kergarouet,  "do  you  not  know  that  the  Marquise  is  separated 
from  her  husband,  that  she  has  not  seen  her  son  for  two  years, 
and  does  not  know  when  they  may  meet  again  ?  " 

"Dear!"  cried  Madame  de  Kergarouet!  "  Poor  lady  ! 
Is  it  a  judicial  separation?" 

"No,  incompatibility,"  said  Camille. 

"I  can  quite  understand  that,"  replied  the  Viscountess 
undaunted. 

Old  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  had  intrenched  herself  a 
few  yards  off  with  her  dear  Charlotte.  Calyste,  after  assuring 
himself  that  no  one  could  see  them,  took  the  Marquise's  hand 
and  kissed  it,  leaving  a  tear  on  it.  Beatrix  turned  on  him, 
her  eyes  dried  by  anger ;  some  cruel  word  was  on  her  tongue, 
but  she  could  say  nothing  as  she  saw  the  tears  on  the  beautiful 
face  of  the  angelic  youth,  as  deeply  moved  as  she  was. 


BEATRIX.  149 

"Good  heavens,  Calyste  !  "  said  Camille  in  a  whisper  as 
he  rejoined  them  with  Madame  de  Rochefide,  "  you  will  have 
that  for  a  mother-in-law,  and  that  little  gaby  for  your  wife." 

"Because  her  aunt  is  rich,"  added  Calyste  sarcastically. 

The  whole  party  now  moved  toward  the  inn,  and  the  Vis- 
countess thought  it  incumbent  on  her  part  to  make  some 
satirical  remarks  to  Camille  Maupin  on  the  savages  of  Saint- 
Naz^iire. 

"  I  love  Brittany,  madame,"  replied  Felicite  gravely.  "  I 
was  born  at  Guerande." 

Calyste  could  not  help  admiring  Mademoiselle  des  Touches, 
who,  by  the  tones  of  her  voice,  her  steady  gaze,  and  placid 
manners,  put  him  at  his  ease,  notwithstanding  the  terrible 
confessions  of  the  scene  that  had  taken  place  last  night.  Still, 
she  looked  tired  ;  her  features  betrayed  that  she  had  not  slept ; 
they  looked  thickened,  but  the  forehead  suppressed  the  in- 
ternal storm  with  relentless  calm. 

"What  queens  !  "  said  he  to  Charlotte,  pointing  to  Beatrix 
and  Camille,  as  he  gave  the  girl  his  arm,  to  Mademoiselle  de 
Pen-HoeTs  great  satisfaction. 

"What  notion  was  this  of  your  mother's,"  said  the  old 
lady,  also  giving  a  lean  arm  to  her  niece,  "to  throw  us  into 
the  company  of  this  wretched  woman  ?  " 

"Oh,  aunt  !  a  woman  who  is  the  glory  of  Brittany." 

"  The  disgrace,  child  !  Do  not  let  me  see  you  too  cringing 
to  her." 

"Mademoiselle  Charlotte  is  right,"  said  Calyste;  "you 
are  unjust." 

"  Oh.  she  has  bewitched  you  !  "  retorted  Mademoiselle  de 
Pen-Hoel. 

"  I  have  the  same  friendship  for  her  that  I  have  for  you," 
said  Calyste. 

"  How  long  have  the  du  Guenics  taken  to  lying?  "  said  the 
old  woman. 

"  Since  the  Pen-Hoels  took  to  being  deaf,"  retorted  Calyste. 


150  BE  A  TRIX. 

"Then  you  are  not  in  love  with  her?"  asked  the  aunt, 
delighted. 

"  I  was,  but  I  am  no  longer,"  he  replied. 

"  Bad  boy  !  Then  why  have  you  given  us  so  much  anxiety? 
I  knew  that  love  was  but  a  folly  ;  only  marriage  is  to  be  relied 
on,"  said  she,  looking  at  Charlotte. 

Charlotte,  somewhat  reassured,  hoped  to  reconquer  her 
advantages  by  an  appeal  to  the  memories  of  their  childhood, 
and  clung  to  Calyste's  arm  ;  but  he  vowed  to  himself  that  he 
would  come  to  a  clear  and  candid  understanding  with  the  lit- 
tle heiress. 

"  Oh,  what  famous  games  of  mouche  we  will  have,  Calyste," 
said  she,  "and  what  capital  fun  !  " 

The  horses  were  put  in  ;  Camille  made  the  Viscountess  and 
Charlotte  take  the  best  seats,  for  Jacqueline  had  disappeared  ; 
then  she  and  the  Marquise  sat  with  their  back  to  the  horses. 
Calyste,  forced  to  give  up  the  pleasure  he  had  promised  him- 
self, rode  at  the  side  of  the  carriage;  and  the  horses,  all  tired, 
went  slowly  enough  to  allow  of  his  gazing  at  Beatrix. 

History  has  kept  no  record  of  the  singular  conversation  of 
these  four  persons,  so  strangely  thrown  together  by  chance  in 
this  carriage ;  for  it  is  impossible  to  accept  the  hundred  and 
something  versions  which  were  current  at  Nantes  as  to  the 
stories,  the  repartees,  and  the  witticisms  which  Madame  de 
Kergarouet  heard  from  Camille  Maupin  himself.  She  took 
good  care  not  to  repeat,  nor  even  understand,  the  replies 
made  by  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  to  all  her  ridiculous 
inquiries — such  as  writers  so  often  hear,  and  by  which  they 
are  made  to  pay  dearly  for  their  few  joys. 

"How  do  you  write  your  books?"  asked  Madame  de 
Kergarouet. 

"Why,  just  as  you  do  your  needlework,"  said  Camille, 
"your  netting,  or  cross-stitch." 

"And  where  did  you  find  all  those  deep  observations  and 
attractive  pictures?" 


BEATRIX.  151 

"Where  you  find  all  the  clever  things  you  say,  madame. 
Nothing  is  easier  than  writing,  and  if  you  chose " 

"Ah,  it  all  lies  in  the  choosing?  I  should  never  have 
thought  it !  And  which  of  your  works  do  you  yourself 
prefer  ? ' ' 

"It  is  difficult  to  have  any  preference  for  these  little 
kittens." 

"  You*  are  surfeited  with  compliments;  it  is  impossible  to 
say  anything  new." 

"Believe  me,  madame,  I  appreciate  the  form  you  give  to 
yours." 

The  Viscountess,  anxious  not  to  seem  neglectful  of  the 
Marquise,  said,  looking  archly  at  her — 

"  I  shall  never  forget  this  drive,  sitting  between  wit  and 
beauty." 

The  Marquise  laughed. 

"  You  flatter  me,  madame,"  said  she.  "  It  is  not  in  nature 
that  wit  should  be  noticed  in  the  company  of  genius,  and  I 
have  not  vet  said  much." 

Charlotte,  keenly  alive  to  her  mother's  absurdity,  looked 
at  her,  hoping  to  check  her  ;  but  the  Viscountess  still  valiantly 
showed  fight  against  the  two  laughing  Parisian  ladies. 
Calyste,  trotting  at  an  easy  pace  by  the  carriage,  could  only 
see  the  two  women  on  the  back  seat,  and  his  eyes  fell  on  them 
alternately,  betraying  a  very  melancholy  mood.  Beatrix, 
who  could  not  help  being  seen,  persistently  avoided  looking 
at  the  youth;  with  a  placidity  that  is  maddening  to  a  lover, 
she  sat  with  her  hands  folded  over  her  crossed  shawl,  and 
seemed  lost  in  deep  meditation. 

At  a  spot  where  the  road  is  shaded  and  as  moist  and  green 
as  a  cool  forest  path,  where  the  wheels  of  the  carriage  were 
scarcely  audible,  and  the  wind  brought  a  resinous  scent, 
Camille  remarked  on  the  beauty  of  the  place,  and,  leaning 
her  hand  on  Beatrix's  knee,  she  pointed  to  Calyste  and 
said — 


152  BEATRIX. 

"  How  well  he  rides  !  " 

"  Calyste  ?  "  said  Madame  de  Kergarouet.    "  He  is  a  capital 

horseman." 

'■•  Oh,  Calyste  is  so  nice  !  "  said  Charlotte. 

"  There  are  so  many  Englishmen  just  like  him "  replied 

the  Marquise  indifferently,  without  finishing  her  sentence. 

"  His  mother  is  Irish — an  O'Brien,"  said  Charlotte,  feeling 
personally  attacked. 

Camille  and  the  Marquise  drove  into  Guerande  with  the 
Vicomtesse  de  Kergarouet  and  her  daughter,  to  the  great  as- 
tonishment of  the  gaping  townspeople  ;  they  left  their  travel- 
ing companions  at  the  corner  of  the  little  Rue  du  Guenic, 
where  there  was  something  very  like  a  crowd.  Calyste  had 
ridden  on  to  announce  to  his  mother  the  arrival  of  the  party, 
who  were  expected  to  dinner.  The  meal  had  been  politely 
put  off  till  four  o'clock. 

The  chevalier  went  back  to  give  The  ladies  his  arm  ;  he 
kissed  Camille's  hand,  hoping  to  touch  that  of  the  Marquise, 
but  she  firmly  kept  her  arms  folded,  and  he  besought  her  in 
vain  with  eyes  sparkling  through  wasted  tears. 

"You  little  goose  !  "  said  Camille  in  his  ear,  with  a  light, 
friendly  kiss  on  it. 

"True  enough!"  said  Calyste  to  himself  as  the  carriage 
turned.  "I  forget  my  mother's  counsels — but  I  believe  I 
always  shall  forget  them." 

Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel,  who  arrived  valiantly  mounted 
on  a  hired  nag,  Madame  de  Kergarouet,  and  Charlotte  found 
the  table  laid,  and  were  cordially,  if  not  luxuriously,  received 
by  the  du  Guenics.  Old  Zephirine  had  sent  for  certain  bot- 
tles of  fine  wine  from  the  depths  of  the  cellar,  and  Mariotte 
had  surpassed  herself  in  Breton  dishes.  The  Viscountess,  de- 
lighted to  have  traveled  with  the  famous  Camille  Maupin,  tried 
to  expatiate  on  modern  literature  and  the  place  held  in  it  by 
Camille ;  but  as  it  had  been  with  the  game  of  whist,  so  it  was 
with  literary  matters;  neither  the  du  Guenics,  nor  the  cure, 


BEATRIX.  153 

who  looked  in,  nor  the  Chevalier  du  Halga  understood  any- 
thing about  them.  The  abbe  and  the  old  naval  officer  sipped 
the  liqueurs  at  dessert. 

As  soon  as  Mariotte,  helped  by  Gasselin  and  by  Madame 
de  Kergarouet's  maid,  had  cleared  the  table,  there  was  an  en- 
thusiastic clamor  for  moache.  Joy  prevailed.  Everybody 
believed  Calyste  to  be  free,  and  saw  him  married  ere  long  to 
little  Charlotte.  Calyste  sat  silent.  For  the  first  time  in  his 
life  he  was  making  comparisons  between  the  Kergarouets  and 
the  two  elegant  and  clever  women,  full  of  taste,  who,  at  this 
very  moment,  were  probably  laughing  at  the  two  provincials, 
if  he  might  judge  from  the  first  glances  they  had  exchanged. 
Fanny,  knowing  Calyste's  secret,  noticed  his  dejection.  Char- 
lotte's coquetting  and  her  mother's  attacks  had  no  effect  on 
him.  Her  dear  boy  was  evidently  bored  ;  his  body  was  in  this 
room,  where  of  yore  he  could  have  been  amused  by  the  ab- 
surdities of  tnouche,  but  his  spirit  was  wandering  round  les 
Touches. 

"How  can  I  send  him  off  to  Camille's?"  thought  the 
mother,  who  loved  him,  and  who  was  bored  because  he  was 
bored.     Her  affection  lent  her  inventiveness. 

"  You  are  dying  to  be  off  to  les  Touches  to  see  her?''''  she 
whispered  to  Calyste. 

The  boy's  answer  was  a  smile  and  a  blush  that  thrilled  this 
devoted  mother  to  her  heart's  very  core. 

"  Madame,"  said  she  to  the  Viscountess,  "  you  will  be  very 
uncomfortable  to-morrow  in  the  carrier's  chaise,  and  obliged 
to  start  very  early  in  the  morning.  Would  it  not  be  better 
if  you  were  to  have  Mademoiselle  des  Touches'  carriage?  Go 
over,  Calyste,"  said  she,  turning  to  her  son,  "and  arrange 
the  matter  at  les  Touches;  but  come  back  quickly." 

"It  will  not  take  ten  minutes,"  cried  Calyste,  giving  his 
mother  a  wild  hug  out  on  the  steps,  whither  she  followed  him. 

Calyste  flew  with  the  speed  of  a  fawn,  and  was  in  the  en- 
trance hall  of  les  Touches  just  as  Camille  and  Beatrix  came 


154  BE  A  TRIX. 

out  of  the  dining-room  after  dinner.     He  had  the  wit  to  offer 
his  arm  to  Felicite. 

"  You  have  deserted  the  Viscountess  and  her  daughter  for 
us,"  said  she,  pressing  his  arm.  "  We  are  able  to  appreciate 
the  extent  of  the  sacrifice." 

"Are  these  Kergarouets  related  to  the  Portendueres  and  old 
Admiral  de  Kergarouet,  whose  widow  married  Charles  de  Van- 
denesse?"  Madame  de  Rochefide  asked  Camille. 

"Mademoiselle  Charlotte  is  the  admiral's  grand-niece," 
replied  Camille. 

"She  is  a  charming  young  person,"  said  Beatrix,  seating 
herself  in  a  Gothic  armchair;  "  the  very  thing  for  Monsieur 
du  Guenic." 

"That  marriage  shall  never  be!"  cried  Camille  vehe- 
mently. 

Calyste,  overwhelmed  by  the  cold  indifference  of  the  Mar- 
quise, who  spoke  of  the  little  country  girl  as  the  only  creature 
for  whom  he,  the  country  chevalier,  was  a  match,  sat  speech- 
less and  bewildered. 

"And  why  not,  Camille?  "  said  Madame  de  Rochefide. 

"My  dear,"  said  Camille,  seeing  Calyste's  despair,  "  I  did 
not  advise  Conti  to  get  married,  and  I  believe  I  was  delightful 
to  him — you  are  ungenerous." 

Beatrix  looked  at  her  with  surprise  mingled  with  indefinable 
suspicions.  Calyste  almost  understood  Camille's  self-immo- 
lation as  he  saw  the  pale  flush  rise  in  her  cheeks,  which,  in 
her,  betrayed  the  most  violent  emotions;  he  went  up  to  her 
awkwardly  enough,  took  her  hand,  and  kissed  it.  Camille 
sat  down  to  the  piano  with  an  easy  air,  as  if  equally 
sure  of  her  friend  and  of  the  lover  she  had  claimed,  turn- 
ing her  back  upon  them,  and  leaving  them  to  each  other. 
She  improvised  some  variations  on  airs,  unconsciously  sug- 
gested by  her  thoughts,  for  they  were  all  deeply  sad.  The 
Marquise  appeared  to  be  listening ;  but  she  was  watching 
Calyste,  who  was  too  young  and  too  guileless  to  play  the  part 


BEATRIX.  155 

suggested  to  him  by  Camille,  and  sat  lost  in  ecstasy  before  his 
real  idol.  At  the  end  of  an  hour,  during  which  Mademoiselle 
des  Touches  gave  herself  up  to  her  jealous  feelings,  Beatrix 
went  to  her  room. 

Camille  at  once  led  Calyste  into  her  own  room,  so  as  not 
to  be  overheard,  for  women  have  an  admirable  sense  of  dis- 
trust. 

"My  child,"  said  she,  "you  must  pretend  to  love  me  or 
you  are  lost ;  you  are  a  perfect  child  ;  you  know  nothing  about 
women,  you  know  only  how  to  love.  To  love  and  to  be 
loved  are  two  very  different  things.  You  are  rushing  into  ter- 
rible suffering.  I  want  you  to  be  happy.  If  you  provoke 
Beatrix,  not  in  her  pride,  but  in  her  obstinacy,  she  is  capable 
of  flying  off  to  join  Conti  at  a  few  leagues  from  Paris.  Then 
what  would  become  of  you  ?  " 

"  I  should  love  her,"  replied  Calyste. 

"  You  would  not  see  her  again." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  should,"  said  he. 

"Pray,  how?" 

"I  should  follow  her." 

"  But  you  are  as  poor  as  Job,  my  dear  child." 

"  My  father,  Gasselin,  and  I  lived  in  la  Vendee  for  three 
months  on  a  hundred  and  fifty  francs,  marching  day  and 
night." 

"  Calyste,"  said  Felicite,  "  listen  to  me.  I  see  you  are  too 
honest  to  act  a  part ;  I  do  not  wish  to  corrupt  so  pure  a  nature 
as  yours.  I  will  take'  it  all  on  myself.  Beatrix  shall  love 
you." 

"Is  it  possible?"  he  cried,  clasping  his  hands. 

"Yes,"  said  Camille.  "But  we  must  undo  the  vows  she 
had  made  to  herself.  I  will  lie  for  you.  Only  do  not  inter- 
fere in  any  way  with  the  arduoustask  I  am  about  to  undertake. 
The  Marquise  has  much  aristocratic  cunning  ;  she  is  intellec- 
tually suspicious ;  no  hunter  ever  had  to  take  more  difficult 
game  ;  so  in  this  case,  my  poor  boy,  the  sportsman  must  take 


156  BE  A  TRIX. 

his  dog's  advice.  Will  you  promise  to  obey  me  blindly  ?  I 
will  be  your  Fox,"  said  she,  naming  Calyste's  best  hound. 

"  What  then  am  I  to  do?"  replied  the  young  man. 

"Very  little,"  said  Camille.  "Come  here  every  day  at 
noon.  I,  like  an  impatient  mistress,  shall  always  be  at  the 
window  of  the  corridor  that  looks  out  on  the  Guerande  road 
to  see  you  coming.  I  shall  fly  to  my  room  so  as  not  to  be 
seen — not  to  let  you  know  the  depth  of  a  passion  that  is  a 
burden  on  you ;  but  sometimes  you  will  see  me  and  wave 
your  handkerchief  to  me.  Then  in  the  courtyard,  and  as 
you  come  upstairs,  you  must  put  on  a  look  of  some  annoy- 
ance. That  will  be  no  dissimulation,  my  child,' '  said  she, 
leaning  her  head  on  his  breast,  "  will  it  ?  Do  not  hurry  up  ; 
look  out  of  the  staircase  window  on  to  the  garden  to  look  for 
Beatrix.  When  she  is  there — and  she  will  be  there,  never 
fear — if  she  sees  you,  come  straight,  but  very  slowly,  to  the 
little  drawing-room,  and  thence  to  my  room.  If  you  should 
see  me  at  the  window  spying  your  treachery,  you  must  start 
back  that  I  may  not  catch  you  imploring  a  glance  from 
Beatrix.  Once  in  my  room  you  will  be  my  prisoner.  Yes ; 
we  will  sit  there  till  four  o'clock.  You  may  spend  the  time 
in  reading ;  I  will  smoke.  You  will  be  horribly  bored  by 
not  seeing  her,  but  I  will  provide  you  with  interesting  books. 
You  have  read  nothing  of  George  Sand's;  I  will  send  a  man 
to-night  to  buy  her  works  at  Nantes,  and  those  of  some  other 
writers  that  are  unknown  to  you. 

"  I  shall  be  the  first  to  leave  the  room;  you  must  not  put 
down  your  book  or  come  into  the  little  drawing-room  till 
you  hear  Beatrix  in  there  talking  to  me.  Whenever  you  see  a 
music-book  open  on  the  piano,  you  can  ask  if  you  may  stay. 
You  may  be  positively  rude  to  me  if  you  can  ;  I  give  you 
leave  ;  all  will  be  well." 

"I  know,  Camille,"  said  he,  with  delightful  good  faith, 
"that  you  have  the  rarest  affection  for  me;  it  mokes  me  quite 
sorry  that  I  ever  saw  Beatrix;  but  what  do  you  hope  for?  " 


&EA  TRIX.  157 

"In  a  week  Beatrix  will  be  crazy  about  you." 

"  Good  God  !  "  cried  he,  "  is  that  possible?  "  and,  clasp- 
ing his  hands,  he  fell  on  his  knees  before  Camille,  who  was 
touched  and  happy  to  give  him  such  joy  at  her  own  cost. 

"Listen  to  me,"  said  she.  "  If  you  speak  to  the  Mar- 
quise— not  merely  in  the  way  of  conversation,  but  if  you 
exchange  even  a  few  words  with  her — if  you  allow  her  to 
question  you,  if  you  fail  in  the  wordless  part  I  set  you  to 
play,  and  which  is  certainly  easy  enough,  understand  clearly," 
and  she  spoke  in  a  serious  tone,  "  you  will  lose  her  for  ever." 

"I  do  not  understand  anything  of  all  this,  Camille,"  cried 
Calyste,  looking  at  her  with  adorable  guilelessness. 

•'  If  you  understood,  you  would  not  be  the  exquisite  child 
that  you  are,  the  noble,  handsome  Calyste,"  said  she,  taking 
his  hand  and  kissing  it. 

And  Calyste  did  what  he  had  never  done  before  ;  he  put 
his  arm  round  Camille  and  kissed  her  gently  on  the  neck, 
without  passion,  but  tenderly,  as  he  kissed  his  mother.  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches  could  not  restrain  a  burst  of  .tears. 

"Now  go,  child,"  said  she,  "and  tell  your  Viscountess 
that  my  carriage  is  at  her  orders." 

Calyste  wanted  to  stay,  but  he  was  obliged  to  obey  Ca- 
mille's  imperious  and  imperative  gesture.  He  went  home  in 
high  spirits,  for  he  was  sure  of  being  loved  within  a  week 
by  the  beautiful  Rochefide. 

The  mouche  players  found  in  him  the  Calyste  they  had  lost 
these  two  months.  Charlotte  ascribed  the  change  to  her 
own  presence.  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  was  affectionately 
teasing.  The  Abbe  Grimont  tried  to  read  in  the  Baroness' 
eyes  the  reason  for  the  calm  he  saw  there.  The  Chevalier  du 
Halga  rubbed  his  hands. 

The  two  old  maids  were  as  lively  as  a  couple  of  lizards. 
The  Viscountess  owed  five  francs'  worth  of  accumulated  fines. 
Zephirine's  avarice  was  so  keenly  excited  that  she  lamented 
her  inability  to  see  the  cards,  and  was  sharply  severe  on  her 


158  BE  A  T&IX. 

sister-in-law,  who  was  distracted  from  the  game  by  Calyste's 
good  spirits,  and  who  asked  him  a  question  now  and  then 
without  understanding  his  replies. 

The  game  went  on  until  eleven  o'clock.  Two  players  had 
retired ;  the  Baron  and  du  Halga  were  asleep  in  their  arm- 
chairs. Mariotte  had  made  some  buckwheat  cakes ;  the 
Baroness  brought  out  her  tea-caddy ;  and  before  the  Kerga- 
rouets  left,  the  noble  house  of  du  Guenic  offered  its  guests 
a  collation,  with  fresh  butter,  fruit,  and  cream,  for  which  the 
silver  teapot  was  brought  out,  and  the  English  China  tea- 
service  sent  to  the  Baroness  by  one  of  her  aunts.  This  air  of 
modern  splendor  in  that  antique  room,  the  Baroness'  exquisite 
grace,  accustomed  as  a  good  Irishwoman  to  make  and  pour 
out  tea,  a  great  business  with  Englishwomen,  were  really  de- 
lightful. The  greatest  luxury  would  not  have  given  such  a 
simple,  unpretending,  and  dignified  effect  as  this  impulse  of 
glad  hospitality. 

When  there  was  no  one  left  in  the  room  but  the  Baroness 
and  her  son,  she  looked  inquiringly  at  Calyste. 

"What  happened  this  evening  at  les  Touches?"  she 
asked. 

Calyste  told  her  of  the  hope  Camille  had  put  into  his  heart 
and  of  her  strange  instructions. 

"  Poor  woman  !  "  exclaimed  Fanny,  clasping  her  hands, 
and  for  the  first  time  pitying  Mademoiselle  des  Touches. 

Some  minutes  after  Calyste  had  left,  Beatrix,  who  had 
heard  him  leave  the  house,  came  into  her  friend's  room,  and 
found  her  sunk  on  a  sofa,  her  eyes  wet  with  tears. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  Felicite?  "  asked  the  Marquise,  with 
concern. 

"  That  I  am  forty  and  in  love,  my  dear  !  "  said  Mademoi- 
selle des  Touches,  in  a  tone  of  terrible  fury,  her  eyes  suddenly 
dry  and  hard.  "  If  only  you  could  know,  Beatrix,  how  many 
tears  I  shed  daily  over  the  lost  days  of  my  youth  !     To  be 


BEATRIX.  159 

loved  out  of  pity,  to  know  that  one's  pittance  of  happiness 
is  earned  by  painful  toil,  by  catlike  tricks,  by  snares  laid  for 
the  innocence  and  virtue  of  a  mere  boy — is  not  that  shameful  ? 
Happily,  we  find  a  sort  of  absolution  in  the  infinitude  of  pas- 
sion, in  the  energy  of  happiness,  in  the  certainty  of  being  for 
ever  supreme  above  other  women  in  a  young  heart,  on  which 
our  name  is  graven  by  unforgettable  pleasure  and  insane  self- 
sacrifice.  Yes,  if  he  asked  it  of  me,  I  would  throw  myself 
into  the  sea  at  his  least  signal.  Sometimes  I  catch  myself 
wishing  that  he  would  desire  it ;  it  would  be  a  sacrifice,  and 
not  suicide. 

"  Oh  !  Beatrix,  in  coming  here  you  set  me  a  cruel  task  !  I 
know  how  difficult  it  is  to  triumph  against  you ;  but  you  love 
Conti,  you  are  noble  and  generous,  and  you  will  not  deceive 
me  ;  on  the  contrary,  you  will  help  me  to  preserve  my  Calyste. 
I  was  prepared  for  the  impression  you  would  make  on  him, 
but  I  have  not  been  so  foolish  as  to  seem  jealous  ;  that  would 
but  add  fuel  to  the  fire.  On  the  contrary,  I  announced  your 
arrival,  depicting  you  in  such  bright  colors  that  you  could 
never  come  up  to  the  portrait,  and  unluckily  you  are  hand- 
somer than  ever." 

This  vehement  lament,  in  which  truth  and  untruth  were 
mingled,  completely  deceived  Madame  de  Rochefide.  Claud 
Vignon  had  told  Conti  his  reasons  for  leaving ;  Beatrix  was, 
of  course,  informed,  so  she  showed  magnanimity  by  behaving 
coldly  to  Calyste  ;  but  at  this  instant  there  awoke  in  her  that 
thrill  of  joy  which  every  woman  feels  at  the  bottom  of  her 
heart  on  hearing  that  she  is  loved.  The  love  she  inspires  in 
any  man  implies  an  unfeigned  flattery  which  it  is  impossible 
not  to  appreciate ;  but  when  the  man  belongs  to  another 
woman,  his  homage  gives  more  than  joy,  it  is  heavenly  bliss. 
Beatrix  sat  down  by  her  friend,  and  was  full  of  little  coaxing 
ways. 

"You  have  not  a  white  hair,"  said  she;  "you  have  not  a 
wrinkle  ;  your  temples  are  smooth  still,  while  I  know  many  a 


160  BE  A  TRIX. 

woman  of  thirty  obliged  to  cover  hers.  Look,  my  dear," 
she  added,  raising  her  curls,  "  what  my  journey  cost  me." 

She  showed  the  faintest  pucker  that  ruffled  the  surface  of 
her  exquisite  skin  ;  she  turned  up  her  sleeve  and  displayed 
the  same  wrinkles  on  her  wrists,  where  the  transparent  texture 
already  showed  lines,  and  a  network  of  swollen  veins,  and 
three  deep  marks  made  a  bracelet  of  furrows. 

"Are  not  these  the  two  spots  which  can  tell  no  lies,  as  a 
writer,  investigating  our  miseries,  has  said  ?  We  must  suffer 
much  before  we  see  the  truth  of  his  terrible  shrewdness ;  but, 
happily  for  us,  most  men  know  nothing  about  it,  and  do  not 
read  that  atrocious  writer." 

"Your  letter  told  me  all,"  replied  Camille.  "Happiness 
is  not  fatuous ;  you  boasted  too  much  of  yours.  In  love, 
truth  is  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind.  And  I,  knowing  you  had 
reasons  for  throwing  over  Conti,  dreaded  your  visit  here. 
My  dear,  Calyste  is  an  angel ;  he  is  as  good  as  he  is  hand- 
some ;  the  poor  innocent  will  not  resist  one  look  from  you, 
he  admires  you  too  much  not  to  love  on  the  smallest  encour- 
agement ;  your  disdain  will  preserve  him  to  me.  I  confess  it 
with  the  cowardice  of  true  passion  :  if  you  take  him  from  me, 
you  kill  me.  'Adolphe,'  that  terrible  book  by  Benjamin 
Constant,  has  told  us  of  Adolphe's  sufferings;  but  what  of  the 
woman's,  heh?  He  did  not  study  them  enough  to  depict 
them,  and  what  woman  would  dare  reveal  them  ?  They  would 
discredit  our  sex,  humiliate  our  virtues,  add  to  our  vices. 
Ah  !  if  I  may  measure  them  by  my  fears,  these  tortures  are 
like  the  torments  of  hell.  But  if  he  deserts  me,  my  deter- 
mination is  fixed." 

"  And  what  have  you  determined  ?  "  asked  Beatrix,  with  an 
eagerness  that  was  a  shock  to  Camille. 

On  this  the  two  friends  looked  at  each  other  with  the  keen- 
ness of  two  Venetian  inquisitors  of  State,  a  swift  glance,  in 
which  their  souls  met  and  struck  fire  like  two  flints.  The 
Marquise's  eyes  fell. 


BEATRIX.  Ifil 

"Beside  man  there  is  only  God  !  "  said  the  famous  woman 
gravely.  "  God  is  the  unknown.  I  should  cast  myself  into 
it  as  into  a  gulf.  Calyste  has  just  sworn  that  he  admires  you 
only  as  he  might  admire  a  picture;  but  you  are  eight-and- 
twenty,  and  in  all  the  splendor  of  your  beauty.  So  the 
struggle  between  him  and  me  has  begun  by  a  falsehood. 
Happily  I  know  how  to  win." 

"  And  how  is  that?  " 

"  That,  my  dear,  is  my  secret.  Leave  me  the  advantages 
of  my  age.  Though  Claud  Vignon  has  cast  me  into  the  abyss 
— me,  when  I  had  raised  myself  to  a  spot  which  I  believed  to 
be  inaccessible — I  may  at  least  pluck  the  pale  blossoms,  etio- 
lated but  delicious,  which  grow  at  the  foot  of  the  precipice." 

Madame  de  Rochefide  was  moulded  like  wax  by  Mademoi- 
selle des  Touches,  who  reveled  in  savage  pleasure  as  she  in- 
volved her  in  her  meshes.  Camille  sent  her  to  bed,  nettled 
with  curiosity,  tossed  between  jealousy  and  generosity,  but 
certainly  thinking  much  about  the  handsome  youth. 

"She  would  be  delighted  if  she  could  betray  me,"  said 
Camille  to  herself,  as  they  kissed  and  said  good-night. 

Then,  when  she  was  alone,  the  author  made  way  for  the 
woman — she  melted  into  tears;  she  filled  her  hookah  with 
tobacco  dipped  in  opium,  and  spent  the  greater  part  of  the 
night  smoking,  and  thus  numbing  the  tortures  of  her  love, 
while  seeing,  through  the  clouds  of  smoke,  Calyste's  charming 
head. 

"What  a  fine  book  might  be  written  containing  the  story 
of  my  sorrows?"  said  she  to  herself;  "but  it  has  been  done. 
Sappho  lived  before  me.  Sappho  was  young  !  A  touching 
and  lovely  heroine  indeed  is  a  woman  of  forty  !  Smoke  your 
hookah,  my  poor  Camille,  you  have  not  even  the  privilege  of 
making  a  poem  out  of  your  woes;  this  crowns  them  all." 

She  did  not  go  to  bed  till  daybreak,  mingling  tears,  spasms 
of  rage,  and  magnanimous  resolutions  in  the  long  meditation 
wherein  she  sometimes  considered  the  mysteries  of  the  Catholic 
U 


162  BEATRIX. 

religion,  of  which  she  had  never  thought  in  the  course  of  her 
reckless  life  as  an  artist  and  an  unbelieving  writer. 

Next  day,  Calyste,  advised  by  his  mother  to  act  exactly  on 
Camille's  instructions,  came  at  noon  and  stole  mysteriously 
up  to  Mademoiselle  des  Touches'  room,  where  he  found 
plenty  of  books.  Felicite  sat  in  an  armchair  by  the  window, 
smoking,  and  gazing  alternately  at  the  wild  marsh  landscape, 
at  the  sea,  and  at  Calyste,  with  whom  she  exchanged  a  few 
words  concerning  Beatrix.  At  a  certain  moment,  seeing  the 
Marquise  walking  in  the  garden,  she  went  to  the  window  to 
unfasten  the  curtains,  so  that  her  friend  should  see  her,  and 
drew  them  to  shut  out  the  light,  leaving  only  a  strip  that  fell 
on  Calyste's  book. 

"  I  shall  ask  you  to  stay  to  dinner  this  evening,  my  child," 
said  she,  tumbling  his  hair,  "  and  you  must  refuse,  looking  at 
Beatrix;  you  will  have  no  difficulty  in  making  her  understand 
how  deeply  you  regret  being  unable  to  remain  here." 

At  about  four  o'clock  Camille  left  him  and  went  to  play 
the  dreadful  farce  of  her  false  happiness  to  the  Marquise, 
whom  she  brought  back  to  the  drawing-room.  Calyste  then 
came  out  of  the  adjoining  room  ;  at  that  moment  he  felt  the 
shame  of  his  position.  The  look  he  gave  Beatrix,  though 
watched  for  by  Felicite,  was  even  more  expressive  than  she 
had  expected.     Beatrix  was  beautifully  dressed. 

"How  elegant  you  are,  my  sweetheart!"  said  Camille, 
when  Calvste  had  left. 

These  manoeuvres  went  on  for  six  days  ;  they  were  seconded, 
without  Calyste's  knowledge,  by  the  most  ingenious  conver- 
sations between  Camille  and  her  friend.  There  was  between 
the  two  women  a  duel  without  truce,  in  which  the  weapons 
were  cunning,  feints,  generosity,  false  confessions,  astute  con- 
fidences, in  which  one  hid  her  love  and  the  other  stripped 
hers  bare,  while  nevertheless  the  iron  sharpness,  red  hot  with 
Camille's  treacherous  words,  pierced  her  friend's  heart  to  the 
core,  implanting  some  of  those  evil  feelings  which  good  women 


BE  A  TRIX.  163 

find  it  so  hard  to  suppress.  Beatrix  in  the  end  took  offense 
at  the  suspicions  betrayed  by  Camille ;  she  thought  them  dis- 
honoring to  both  alike  ;  she  was  delighted  to  discover  in  the 
great  authoress  the  weakness  of  her  sex,  and  longed  for  the 
pleasure  of  showing  her  where  her  superiority  ended,  how  she 
might  be  humiliated. 

"Well,  my  dear,  what  are  you  going  to  tell  him  to-day?" 
she  asked,  with  a  spiteful  glance  at  her  friend,  when  the  im- 
aginary lover  asked  leave  to  remain.  "  On  Monday  we  had 
something  to  talk  over  ;  on  Tuesday  you  had  too  poor  a  din- 
ner ;  on  Wednesday  you  were  afraid  of  annoying  the  Baroness ; 
on  Thursday  we  were  going  out  together ;  yesterday  you  bid 
him  good-by  as  soon  as  he  opened  his  mouth.  Now,  I  want 
him  to  stay  to-day,  poor  boy  !  " 

''Already,  my  dear  !  "  said  Camille,  with  biting  irony. 

Beatrix  colored. 

"Then  stay,  Monsieur  du  Guenic,"  said  Mademoiselle  des 
Touches,  assuming  a  queenly  air,  as  though  she  were  nettled. 

Beatrix  turned  cold  and  hard  ;  she  was  crushing,  satirical, 
and  intolerable  to  Calyste,  whom  Felicite  sent  off  to  play 
mouche  with  Mademoiselle  de  Kergarouet. 

"  That  girl  is  not  dangerous  !  "  said  Beatrix,  smiling. 

Young  men  in  love  are  like  starving  people,  the  cook's 
preparations  do  not  satisfy  them  ;  they  think  too  much  of  the 
end  to  understand  the  means.  As  he  returned  from  les 
Touches  to  Guerande,  Calyste's  mind  was  full  of  Beatrix  ;  he 
did  not  know  what  deep  feminine  skill  Felicite  was  employing 
to  promote  his  interests — to  use  a  cant  phrase.  In  the  course 
of  this  week  the  Marquise  had  written  but  one  letter  to  Conti, 
a  symptom  of  indifference  which  had  not  escaped  Camille. 

Calyste's  whole  life  was  concentrated  in  the  short  mo- 
ments when  he  saw  Beatrix ;  this  drop  of  water,  far  from 
quenching  his  thirst,  only  increased  it.  The  magic  words, 
"You  shall  be  loved,"  spoken  by  Camille  and  endorsed  by 
his  mother,  were  the  talisman  by  which  he  checked  the  fire 


164  BEATRIX. 

of  his  passion.  He  tried  to  kill  time  ;  he  could  not  sleep, 
and  cheated  his  sleeplessness  by  reading,  bringing  home  a 
barrow-load  of  books  every  evening,  as  Mariotte  expressed  it. 
His  aunt  cursed  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  ;  but  the  Baroness, 
who  had  often  gone  up  to  her  son's  room  on  seeing  a  light 
there,  knew  the  secret  of  this  wakefulness.  Though  Fanny 
had  never  gotten  beyond  her  timidity  as  an  ignorant  girl,  and 
love's  books  had  remained  close  to  her,  her  motherly  tender- 
ness guided  her  to  certain  notions ;  still,  the  abysses  of  the 
sentiment  were  dark  to  her  and  hidden  by  clouds,  and  she  was 
very  much  alarmed  at  the  state  in  which  she  saw  her  son,  ter- 
rifying herself  over  the  one  absorbing  and  incomprehensible 
desire  that  was  consuming  him. 

Calyste  had,  in  fact,  but  one  idea :  the  image  of  Beatrix  was 
always  before  him.  During  the  evening,  over  the  cards,  his 
absence  of  mind  was  like  his  father's  slumbers.  Finding  him 
so  unlike  what  he  had  been  when  he  had  believed  himself  in 
love  with  Camille,  his  mother  recognized  with  a  sort  of  terror 
the  symptoms  of  a  genuine  passion,  a  thing  altogether  un- 
known in  the  old  family  home.  Feverish  irritability  and  con- 
stant dreaming  made  Calyste  stupid.  He  would  often  sit  for 
hours  gazing  at  one  figure  in  the  tapestry.  That  morning  she 
had  advised  him  to  go  no  more  to  les  Touches,  but  to  give  up 
these  two  women. 

"  Not  go  to  les  Touches  !  "  cried  he. 

"Nay,  go,  my  dear,  go;  do  not  be  angry,  my  darling," 
replied  she,  kissing  his  eyes,  which  had  flashed  flame  at  her. 

In  this  state  Calyste  was  within  an  ace  of  losing  the  fruits  of 
Camille's  skilled  manoeuvres  by  the  Breton  impetuosity  of  his 
love,  which  he  could  no  longer  master.  In  spite  of  his 
promises  to  Felicite,  he  vowed  that  he  would  see  and  speak  to 
Beatrix.  He  wanted  to  read  her  eyes,  to  drown  his  gaze  in 
their  depths,  to  study  the  little  details  of  her  dress,  to  breathe 
its  fragrance,  to  hear  the  music  of  her  voice,  follow  the  elegant 
deliberateness  of  her  movements,  embrace  her  figure  in  a 


BEA  TRIX.         •  165 

glance — to  contemplate  her,  in  short,  as  a  great  general 
studies  the  field  on  which  a  decisive  battle  is  to  be  fought. 
He  wanted  her,  as  lovers  want ;  he  was  the  prey  of  such  desire 
as  closed  his  ears,  dulled  his  intellect,  and  threw  him  into  a 
morbid  condition,  in  which  he  no  longer  saw  obstacles  or  dis- 
tance, and  was  not  even  conscious  of  his  body. 

It  struck  him  that  he  might  go  to  les  Touches  before  the 
hour  agreed  upon,  hoping  to  find  Beatrix  in  the  garden.  He 
knew  that  she  walked  there  while  waiting  for  breakfast. 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches  and  her  friend  had  been  in  the 
morning  to  see  the  salt-marshes  and  the  basin  with  its  shore 
of  fine  sand,  into  which  the  sea  oozes,  looking  like  a  lake  in 
the  midst  of  the  sand-hills ;  they  had  come  home,  and  were 
talking  as  they  wandered  about  the  yellow  gravel  paths  in  the 
garden. 

"If  this  landscape  interests  you,"  said  Camille,  "you 
should  go  to  le  Croisic  with  Calyste.  There  are  some  very 
fine  rocks  there,  cascades  of  granite,  little  bays  with  natural 
basins,  wonders  of  capricious  variety,  and  the  seashore  with 
thousands  of  fragments  of  marble,  a  whole  world  of  amuse- 
ment. You  will  see  women  making  wood ;  that  is  to  say, 
plastering  masses  of  cow-dung  against  the  wall  to  dry,  and 
then  piling  them  to  keep,  like  peat  in  Paris  ;  then,  in  winter, 
they  warm  themselves  by  that  fuel." 

"And  you  will  trust  Calyste?"  said  the  Marquise,  laugh- 
ing, in  a  tone  which  plainly  showed  that  Camille,  by  sulking 
with  Beatrix  the  night  before,  had  obliged  her  to  think  of 
Calyste. 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  when  you  know  the  angelic  soul  of  a  boy 
like  him  you  will  understand  me.  In  him  beauty  is  as  noth- 
ing, you  must  know  that  pure  heart,  that  guilelessness  that  is 
amazed  at  every  step  taken  in  the  realm  of  love.  What 
faith  !  what  candor  !  what  grace  !  The  ancients  had  good 
reason  to  worship  beauty  as  holy. 

"  Some  traveler,  I  forget  whom,  tells  us  that  horses  in  a 


166  BEATRIX. 

state  of  freedom  take  the  handsomest  of  them  to  be  their 
leader.  Beauty,  my  dear,  is  the  genius  of  matter ;  it  is  the 
hall-mark  set  by  nature  on  her  most  perfect  creations ;  it  is 
the  truest  symbol,  as  it  is  the  greatest  chance.  Did  any  one 
ever  imagine  a  deformed  angel  ?  Do  not  they  combine  grace 
and  strength  ?  What  has  kept  us  standing  for  hours  together 
before  certain  pictures  in  Italy,  in  which  genius  has  striven 
for  years  to  realize  one  of  these  caprices  of  nature?  Come, 
with  your  hand  on  your  conscience,  was  it  not  the  ideal  of 
beauty  which  we  combined  in  our  minds  with  moral  grandeur  ? 
Well,  and  Calyste  is  one  of  those  dreams  made  real ;  he  has 
the  courage  of  the  lion,  who  remains  quiet  without  suspecting 
his  sovereignty.  When  he  feels  at  ease  he  is  brilliant ;  I  like 
his  girlish  diffidence.  In  his  heart,  my  soul  is  refreshed  after 
all  the  corruption,  the  ideas  of  science,  literature,  the  world, 
politics — all  the  futile  accessories  under  which  we  stifle  happi- 
ness. I  am  now  what  I  never  was  before — I  am  a  child  !  I 
am  sure  of  him,  but  I  like  to  pretend  jealousy;  it  makes  him 
happy.     Beside,  it  is  part  of  my  secret." 

Beatrix  walked  on,  silent  and  pensive  ;  Camille  was  en- 
during unspoken  martyrdom,  and  flashing  side-glances  at  her 
that  looked  like  flames. 

"Ah,  my  dear,  you — you  are  happy,"  said  Beatrix,  leaning 
her  hand  on  Camille's  arm  like  a  woman  weary  of  some  covert 
resistance. 

f  Yes  !  very  happy!"  replied  poor  Felicite,  with  savage 
bitterness. 

The  women  sank  on  to  a  bench,  both  exhausted.  No  crea- 
ture of  her  sex  was  ever  subjected  to  more  elaborate  seduction 
or  more  clear-sighted  Machiavellism  than  Madame  de  Roche- 
fide  had  been  during  the  last  week. 

"  But  I — I  who  see  Conti's  infidelities,  who  swallow  them, 
who " 

"And  why  do  you  not  give  him  up?"  said  Camille,  dis- 
cerning a  favorable  moment  for  striking  a  decisive  blow. 


BEATRIX.  167 

"Can  I?"  • 

"  Oh  !   poor  child " 

They  both  sat  stupidly  gazing  at  a  clump  of  trees. 

"I  will  go  and  hasten  breakfast,"  said  Camille,  "  this  walk 
has  given  me  an  appetite." 

"  Our  conversation  has  taken  away  mine,"  said  Beatrix. 

Beatrix,  a  white  figure  in  a  morning  dress,  stood  out  against 
the  green  masses  of  foliage.  Calyste,  who  had  stolen  into  the 
garden  through  the  drawing-room,  turned  down  a  path, 
walking  slowly  to  meet  the  Marquise  by  chance,  as  it  were; 
and  Beatrix  could  not  help  starting  a  little  when  she  saw 
him. 

"How  did  I  displease  you  yesterday,  madame?"  asked 
Calyste,  after  a  few  commonplace  remarks  had  been  ex- 
changed. 

"Why,  you  neither  please  me  nor  displease  me,"  said  she 
gently. 

Her  tone,  her  manner,  her  delightful  grace  encouraged 
Calyste. 

"  I  am  indifferent  to  you?  "  said  he,  in  a  voice  husky  with 
the  tears  that  rose  to  his  eyes. 

"Must  we  not  be  indifferent  to  each  other?"  replied 
Beatrix.      "  Each  of  us  has  a  sincere  attachment " 

"  Oh  !  "  said  Calyste  eagerly,  "I  did  love  Camille;  but  I 
do  not  love  her  now." 

"Then  what  do  you  do  every  day,  all  the  morning  long?" 
asked  she,  with  a  perfidious  smile.  "  I  cannot  suppose  that, 
in  spite  of  her  passion  for  tobacco,  Camille  prefers  her  cigar 
to  you;  or  that,  in  spite  of  your  admiration  for  authoresses, 
you  spend  four  hours  in  reading  novels  by  women." 

"  Then  you  know?  "  said  the  innocent  boy,  his  face  flushed 
with  the  joy  of  gazing  at  his  idol. 

"Calyste!"  cried  Camille  violently,  as  she  appeared  on 
the  scene,  seizing  him  by  the  arm  and  pulling  him  some  steps; 
"  Calyste,  is  this  what  you  promised  me?  " 


168  BEATRIX. 

The  Marquise  heard  this  reproof,  while  Mademoiselle  des 
Touches  went  off  scolding  and  leading  away  Calyste ;  she 
stood  mystified  by  Calyste's  avowal,  and  unable  to  understand 
it.  Madame  de  Rochefide  was  not  so  clear-sighted  as  Claud 
Vignon.  The  truth  of  the  terrible  and  sublime  comedy  per- 
formed by  Camille  is  one  of  those  parts  of  magnanimous 
infamy  which  a  woman  can  conceive  of  only  in  the  last 
extremity.  It  means  a  breaking  heart,  the  end  of  her  feelings 
as, a  woman,  and  the  beginning  of  a  sacrifice,  which  drags  her 
down  to  hell  or  leads  her  to  heaven. 

During  breakfast,  to  which  Calyste  was  invited,  Beatrix, 
whose  feelings  were  lofty  and  proud,  had  already  undergone 
a  revulsion,  stifling  the  germs  of  love  that  were  sprouting  in 
her  heart.  She  was  not  hard  or  cold  to  Calyste,  but  her  mild 
indifference  wrung  his  heart.  Felicite  proposed  that  they 
should  go  on  the  next  day  but  one  to  make  an  excursion 
through  the  strange  tract  of  country  lying  between  les  Touches, 
le  Croisic,  and  le  Bourg  de  Batz.  She  begged  Calyste  to  spend 
the  morrow  in  finding  a  boat  and  some  men,  in  case  they 
should  wish  to  go  out  by  sea.  She  undertook  to  supply 
provisions,  horses,  and  everything  necessary  to  spare  them 
any  fatigue  in  this  party  of  pleasure. 

Beatrix  cut  her  short  by  saying  that  she  would  not  take  the 
risk  of  running  about  the  country.  Calyste's  face,  which  had 
expressed  lively  delight,  was  suddenly  clouded. 

"  Why,  what  are  you  afraid  of,  my  dear?"  said  Camille. 

"  My  position  is  too  delicate  to  allow  of  my  compromising, 
not  my  reputation,  but  my  happiness,"  she  said  with  mean- 
ing, and  she  looked  at  the  lad.  "  You  know  how  jealous 
Conti  is;  if  he  knew " 

"And  who  is  to  tell  him?" 

"  Will  he  not  come  back  to  fetch  me?" 

At  these  words  Calyste  turned  pale.  Notwithstanding 
Felicite's  arguments  and  those  of  the  young  Breton,  Madame 
de  Rochefide  was  inexorable  and  showed  what  Camille  called 


BEATRIX.  169 

her  obstinacy.  Calyste,  in  spite  of  the  hopes  Felicite  gave 
him,  left  les  Touches  in  one  of  those  fits  of  lover's  distress  of 
which  the  violence  often  risesto  the  pitch  of  madness. 

On  his  return  home,  Calyste  did  not  quit  his  room  till 
dinner-time,  and  went  back  again  soon  after.  At  ten  o'clock 
his  mother  became  uneasy  and  went  up  to  him  ;  she  found 
him  writing  in  the  midst  of  a  quantity  of  torn  papers  and 
rough  copy.  He  was  writing  to  Beatrix,  for  he  distrusted 
Camille;  the  Marquise's  manner  during  their  interview  in  the 
garden  had  encouraged  him  strangely. 

Never  did  a  first  love-letter  spring  in  a  burning  fount  from 
the  soul,  as  might  be  supposed.  In  all  youths,  as  yet  uncor- 
rupted,  such  a  letter  is  produced  with  a  flow  too  hotly  effer- 
vescent not  to  be  the  elixir  of  several  letters  begun,  rejected, 
and  re- written. 

Here  is  that  sent  by  Calyste,  which  he  read  to  his  poor, 
astonished  mother.  To  her,  the  old  house  was  on  fire ;  her 
son's  love  blazed  up  in  it  like  the  flare  of  a  conflagration  : 

Calyste  to  Beatrix. 

"  Madame  : — I  loved  you  when  as  yet  you  were  but  a  dream 
to  me ;  imagine  the  fervor  assumed  by  my  love  when  I  saw 
you.  The  dream  was  surpassed  by  the  reality.  My  regret  is 
that  I  have  nothing  to  tell  you  that  you  do  not  know,  when  I 
say  how  beautiful  you  are;  still,  perhaps,  your  beauty  never 
gave  rise  to  so  many  feelings  in  any  one  as  in  me.  You  are 
beautiful  in  so  many  ways ;  I  have  studied  you  so  thoroughly 
by  thinking  of  you  day  and  night,  that  I  have  penetrated  the 
mystery  of  your  personality,  the  secrets  of  your  heart,  and 
your  misprized  refinements.  Have  you  ever  been  loved  as 
you  deserve  ? 

"  Let  me  tell  you,  then,  that  there  is  nothing  in  you  which 
has  not  its  interpretation  in  my  heart :  your  pride  answers  to 


170  BEATRIX. 

mine,  the  dignity  of  your  looks,  the  grace  of  your  mien,  the 
elegance  of  your  movements — everything  in  you  is  in  har- 
mony with  the  thoughts  and  wishes  hidden  in  your  secret 
soul ;  and  it  is  because  I  can  read  them  that  I  think  myself 
worthy  of  you.  If  I  had  not  become,  within  these  few  days, 
your  second  self,  should  I  dare  speak  to  you  of  myself?  To 
read  myself  would  be  egotistic ;  it  is  you  I  speak  of  here,  not 
Calyste. 

"To  write  to  you,  Beatrix,  I  have  set  my  twenty  years 
aside ;  I  have  stolen  a  march  on  myself  and  aged  my  mind — 
or,  perhaps,  you  have  aged  it  by  a  week  of  the  most  horrible 
torments,  caused,  innocently  indeed,  by  you.  Do  not  take 
me  for  one  of  those  commonplace  lovers  at  whom  you  laugh 
with  such  good  reason.  What  merit  is  there,  indeed,  in  loving 
a  young,  beautiful,  clever,  noble  woman  !  Alas,  I  cannot  even 
dream  of  deserving  you!  What  am  I  to  you?  A  boy  at- 
tracted by  beauty  and  moral  worth,  as  an  insect  is  attracted 
by  light.  You  cannot  do  anything  else  than  trample  on  the 
flowers  of  my  soul,  yet  all  my  happiness  lies  in  seeing  you 
spurn  them  under  foot.  Absolute  devotion,  unlimited  faith, 
the  maddest  passion — all  these  treasures  of  a  true  and  loving 
heart  are  nothing ;  they  help  me  to  love,  they  cannot  win 
love. 

"Sometimes  I  wonder  that  such  fervent  fanaticism  should 
fail  to  warm  the  idol ;  and  when  I  meet  your  severe,  cold 
eye,  I  feel  myself  turn  to  ice.  Your  disdain  affects  me  then 
and  not  my  adoration.  Why?  You  cannot  possibly  hate  me 
so  much  as  I  love  you  ;  so  ought  the  weaker  feeling  to  get  the 
mastery  over  the  stronger? 

"I  loved  Felicite  with  all  the  strength  of  my  heart;  I 
forgot  her  in  a  day,  in  an  instant,  on  seeing  you.  She  was  a 
mistake,  you  are  the  truth.  You,  without  knowing  it,  have 
wrecked  my  happiness,  and  you  owe  me  nothing  in  exchange. 
I  loved  Camille  without  hope,  and  you  give  me  no  hopes  ; 
nothing  is  changed  but  the  divinity.     I  was  a  pagan,  I  am  a 


BE  A  TRIX.  171 

Christian ;  that  is  all.  Only,  you  have  taught  me  to  love — 
to  be  loved,  does  not  come  till  later.  Camille  says  it  is  not 
love  that  loves  only  for  a  few  days  ;  the  love  that  does  not 
grow  day  by  day  is  a  contemptible  passion  ;  to  continue  grow- 
ing it  must  not  foresee  its  end,  and  she  could  see  the  setting 
of  our  sun. 

"On  seeing  you,  I  understood  these  sayings  which  I  had 
struggled  against  with  all  my  youth,  all  the  rage  of  my  de- 
sires, all  the  fierce  despotism  of  my  twenty  years.  Then  our 
great  and  sublime  Camille  mingled  her  tears  with  mine.  So  I 
may  love  you  on  earth  and  in  heaven,  as  we  love  God.  If  you 
loved  me,  you  could  not  meet  me  with  the  reasoning  by  which 
Camille  annihilated  my  efforts.  We  are  both  young,  we  can 
fly  on  the  same  wings,  under  the  same  sky,  and  never  fear  the 
storm  that  threatened  that  eagle. 

"But  what  am  I  saying?  I  am  carried  far  beyond  the 
modesty  of  my  hopes.  You  will  cease  to  believe  in  the  sub- 
mission, the  patience,  the  mute  worship,  which  I  implore  you 
not  to  wound  needlessly.  I  know,  Beatrix,  that  you  cannot 
love  me  without  falling  in  your  own  esteem.  And  I  ask  for 
no  return. 

"  Camille  said  once  that  there  was  an  innate  fatality  in 
names,  as  in  her  own.  I  felt  this  fatality  in  yours  when  on 
the  pier  at  Guerande  it  struck  my  eyes  on  the  seashore ;  you 
will  come  into  my  life  as  Beatrice  came  into  Dante's.  My 
heart  will  be  the  pedestal  for  a  white  statue — vindictive,  jeal- 
ous, and  tyrannous.  You  are  prohibited  from  loving  me; 
you  would  endure  a  thousand  deaths;  you  would  be  deceived, 
mortified,  unhappy.  There  is  in  you  a  diabolical  pride  which 
binds  you  to  the  pillar  you  have  laid  hold  on  ;  you  will  perish 
while  shaking  the  temple  like  Samson.  I  did  not  discover  all 
these  things;  my  love  is  too  blind  ;  Camille  told  me.  Here 
it  is  not  my  mind  that  speaks,  but  hers ;  I  have  no  wits  when 
you  are  in  question,  a  tide  of  blood  comes  up  from  my  heart, 
darkening  my  intellect  with  its  waves,  depriving  me  of  my 


172  BE  A  TRIX. 

powers,  paralyzing  my  tongue,  making  my  knees  quake  and 
bend.  I  can  only  adore  you,  whatever  you  do.  Camille 
calls  your  firmness  obstinacy  ;  I  defend  you ;  I  believe  it  to 
be  dictated  by  virtue.  You  are  only  the  more  beautiful  in 
my  eyes.  I  know  my  fate ;  the  pride  of  Brittany  is  a  match 
for  the  woman  who  has  made  a  virtue  of  hers. 

"  And  so,  dear  Beatrix,  be  kind  and  comforting  to  me. 
When  the  victims  were  chosen,  they  were  crowned  with 
flowers  ;  you  owe  me  the  garlands  of  compassion  and  music 
for  the  sacrifice.  Am  I  not  the  proof  of  your  greatness,  and 
will  you  not  rise  to  the  height  of  my  love,  scorned  in  spite  of 
its  sincerity,  in  spite  of  its  undying  fires? 

"Ask  Camille  what  my  conduct  has  been  since  the  day 
when  she  told  me  that  she  loved  Claud  Vignon.  I  was  mute; 
I  suffered  in  silence.  Well,  then,  for  you  I  could  find  yet 
greater  strength,  if  you  do  not  drive  me  to  desperation,  if  you 
understand  my  heroism.  One  word  of  praise  from  you  would 
enable  me  to  bear  the  torments  of  martyrdom.  If  you  per- 
sist in  this  cold  silence,  this  deadly  disdain,  you  will  make 
me  believe  that  I  am  to  be  feared.  Oh,  be  to  me  all  you  can 
be — charming,  gay,  witty,  affectionate.  Talk  to  me  of  Gen- 
naro  as  Camille  did  of  Claud.  I  have  no  genius  but  that  of 
love  ;  there  is  nothing  formidable  in  me,  and  in  your  presence 
I  will  behave  as  though  I  did  not  love  you. 

"  Can  you  reject  the  prayer  of  such  humble  devotion,  of  a 
hapless  youth,  who  only  asks  that  his  sun  should  give  him 
light  and  warm  him  ?  The  man  you  love  will  always  see  you ; 
poor  Calyste  has  but  a  few  days  before  him,  you  will  soon  be 
rid  of  him.  So  I  may  go  to  les  Touches  again  to-morrow, 
may  I  not  ?  You  will  not  refuse  my  arm  to  guide  you  around 
the  shores  of  le  Croisic  and  le  Bourg  de  Batz  ?  If  you  should 
not  come,  that  will  be  an  answer,  and  understood  by  Calyste." 

There  were  four  pages  more  of  close  small  writing,  in  which 
Calyste  explained  the  terrible  threat  contained  in  these  last 


BEATRIX.  173 

words,  by  relating  the  story  of  his  boyhood  and  life ;  but  he 
told  it  in  exclamatory  phrases ;  there  were  many  of  those  dots 
and  dashes  lavishly  scattered  through  modern  literature  in 
perilous  passages,  like  planks  laid  before  the  reader  to  enable 
him  to  cross  the  gulf.  This  artless  picture  would  be  a  repeti- 
tion of  our  narrative ;  if  it  did  not  touch  Madame  de  Roche- 
fide,  it  could  scarcely  interest  those  who  seek  strong  sensa- 
tions ;  but  it  made  his  mother  weep  and  say — 

"Then  you  have  not  been  happy?" 

This  terrible  poem  of  feeling  that  had  come  like  a  storm  on 
Calyste's  heart,  and  was  to  be  sent  like  a  whirlwind  to  another, 
frightened  the  Baroness  ;  it  was  the  first  time  in  her  life  that 
she  had  ever  read  a  love-letter. 

Calyste  was  standing  up;  there  was  one  great  difficulty: 
he  did  not  know  how  to  send  his  letter. 

The  Chevalier  du  Halga  was  still  in  the  sitting-room,  where 
they  were  playing  off  the  last  pool  of  a  very  lively  mouche. 
Charlotte  de  Kergarouet,  in  despair  at  Calyste's  indifference, 
was  trying  to  charm  the  old  people  in  the  hope  of  thus  secur- 
ing her  marriage.  Calyste  followed  his  mother,  and  came 
back  into  the  room  with  the  letter  in  his  breast-pocket — it 
seemed  to  scorch  his  heart ;  he  wandered  about  and  up  and 
down  the  room  like  a  moth  that  had  come  in  by  mistake.  At 
last  the  mother  and  son  got  Monsieur  du  Halga  into  the  hall, 
whence  they  dismissed  Mariotte  and  Mademoiselle  de  Pen- 
HoeTs  little  servant. 

"  What  do  they  want  of  the  chevalier?  "  said  old  Zephirine 
to  the  other  old  maid. 

"  Calyste  seems  to  me  to  be  out  of  his  mind,"  replied  she. 
"  He  pays  no  more  heed  to  Charlotte  than  if  she  were  one  of 
the  marsh-girls." 

The  Baroness  had  very  shrewdly  supposed  that  the  Chevalier 
du  Halga  must,  somewhere  about  the  year  17S0,  have  sailed 
the  seas  of  gallant  adventure,  and  she  advised  Calyste  to  con- 
sult him. 


174  BEATRIX. 

"  What  is  the  best  way  to  send  a  letter  secretly  to  a  lady?" 
said  Calyste  to  the  chevalier  in  a  whisper. 

"You  can  give  the  note  to  her  lady's-maid,  with  a  few 
louis  in  her  hand,  for  sooner  or  later  the  maid  is  in  the 
secret,  and  it  is  best  to  let  her  know  it  from  the  first,"  replied 
the  chevalier,  who  could  not  suppress  a  smile ;  "  but  it  is 
better  to  deliver  it  yourself." 

"A  few  louis  !  "  exclaimed  the  Baroness. 

Calyste  went  away  and  fetched  his  hat ;  then  he  flew  off  to 
les  Touches,  and  walked  like  an  apparition  into  the  little 
drawing-room,  where  he  heard  Beatrix  and  Camille  talking. 
They  were  sitting  on  the  divan,  and  seemed  on  the  best  possi- 
ble terms.  Calyste,  with  the  sudden  wit  that  love  imparts, 
flung  himself  heedlessly  on  the  divan  by  the  Marquise,  seized 
her  hand,  and  pressed  the  letter  into  it,  so  that  Felicite, 
watchful  as  she  might  be,  could  not  see  it  done.  Calyste's 
heart  fluttered  with  an  emotion  that  was  at  once  acute  and 
delightful,  as  he  felt  Beatrix's  hand  grasp  his,  and  without 
even  interrupting  her  sentence  or  seeming  surprised,  she 
slipped  the  letter  into  her  gloves. 

"You  fling  yourself  on  a  woman  as  if  she  were  a  divan," 
said  she  with  a  laugh. 

"  He  has  not,  however,  adopted  the  doctrine  of  the  Turks ! " 
said  Felicity,  who  could  not  forbear  from  this  retort. 

Calyste  rose,  took  Camille's  hand,  and  kissed  it ;  then  he 
went  to  the  piano  and  made  every  note  sound  in  a  long  scale 
by  running  one  finger  over  them.  This  glad  excitement  puz- 
zled Camille,  who  told  him  to  come  to  speak  to  her. 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  she  asked  in  his  ear. 

"  Nothing,"  said  he. 

"There  is  something  between  them,"  said  Mademoiselle 
des  Touches  to  herself. 

The  Marquise  was  impenetrable.  Camille  tried  to  make 
Calyste  talk,  hoping  that  he  might  betray  himself;  but  the 
boy  made  an  excuse  of  the  uneasiness  his  mother  would  feel, 


BEATRIX.  175 

and  he  left  les  Touches  at  eleven  o'clock,  not  without  having 
stood  the  fire  of  a  piercing  look  from  Camille,  to  whom  he 
had  never  before  made  this  excuse. 

After  the  agitations  of  a  night  filled  with  Beatrix,  after  he 
had  been  into  the  town  twenty  times  in  the  course  of  the 
morning,  in  the  hope  of  meeting  the  answer  which  did  not 
come,  the  Marquise's  maid  came  to  the  Hotel  du  Guenic, 
and  gave  the  following  reply  to  Calyste,  who  went  off  to  read 
it  in  the  arbor  at  the  end  of  the  garden  : 

Beatrix  to  Calyste. 

"  You  are  a  noble  boy,  but  you  are  a  boy.  You  owe  your- 
self to  Camille,  who  worships  you.  You  will  not  find  in  me 
either  the  perfections  that  distinguish  her  or  the  happiness 
she  lavishes  on  you.  Whatever  you  may  think,  it  is  she  who 
is  young  and  I  who  am  old  ;  her  heart  is  full  of  treasures,  and 
mine  is  empty.  She  is  devoted  to  you  in  a  way  you  do  not 
appreciate  enough  ;  she  has  no  selfishness,  and  lives  wholly 
in  you.  I  should  be  full  of  doubts  ;  I  should  drag  you  into 
a  life  that  is  weariful,  ignoble,  and  spoiled  by  my  own  fault. 
Camille  is  free,  she  comes  and  goes  at  her  will ;  I  am  a  slave. 
In  short,  you  forget  that  I  love  and  am  loved.  The  position 
in  which  I  find  myself  ought  to  protect  me  against  any  hom- 
age. To  love  me,  to  tell  me  that  you  love  me,  is  an  insult. 
Would  not  a  second  lapse  place  me  on  the  level  of  the  most 
abandoned  women  ? 

"  You,  who  are  young  and  full  of  delicate  feeling,  how  can 
you  compel  me  to  say  things  which  the  heart  cannot  utter 
without  being  torn. 

"  I  preferred  the  scandal  of  an  irreparable  disaster  to  the 
shame  of  perpetual  deceit,  my  own  ruin  to  the  loss  of  my 
self-respect.  In  the  eyes  of  many  people  whose  esteem  I 
value,  I  still  stand  high;  if  I  should  change,  I  should  fall 
some  steps  lower.     The   world    is  still    merciful    to   women 


176  BE  A  TRIX. 

whose  constancy  cloaks  their  illicit  happiness,  but  it  is  pitiless 
to  a  vicious  habit. 

"  I  feel  neither  scorn  nor  anger ;  I  am  answering  you  with 
frank  simplicity.  You  are  young,  you  know  nothing  of  the 
world,  you  are  carried  away  by  imagination,  and,  like  all  men 
of  pure  life,  you  are  incapable  of  the  reflections  induced  by 
disaster.  I  will  go  further :  If  I  should  be  of  all  women  the 
most  mortified  ;  if  I  had  horrible  misery  to  hide ;  if  I  were 
deceived  and  deserted  at  last — and,  thank  God,  nothing  of 
that  is  possible — if,  I  say,  by  the  vengeance  of  heaven  these 
things  were,  no  one  in  the  world  would  ever  see  me  again. 
And  then  I  could  find  it  in  me  to  kill  the  man  who  should 
speak  to  me  of  love,  if  a  man  could  still  find  me  where  I 
should  be.     There  you  have  the  whole  of  my  mind. 

"  Perhaps  I  have  to  thank  you  for  having  written  to  me. 
After  your  letter,  and  especially  after  my  reply,  I  may  be 
quite  at  my  ease  with  you  at  les  Touches,  follow  the  bent  of 
my  humor,  and  be  what  you  ask  me  to  be.  I  say  nothing  of 
the  bitter  ridicule  I  should  incur  if  my  eyes  should  cease  to 
express  the  sentiments  of  which  you  complain.  To  rob 
Camille  a  second  time  would  be  an  evidence  of  weakness  to 
which  no  woman  could  twice  resign  herself.  If  I  loved  you 
madly,  if  I  were  blind,  if  I  were  forgetful  of  everything  else, 
I  should  always  see  Camille.  Her  love  for  you  is  a  barrier 
too  high  to  be  crossed  by  any  force,  even  with  the  wings  of 
an  angel ;  only  demons  would  not  recoil  from  such  base 
treachery. 

"In  this,  my  child,  lies  a  world  of  reasons  which  noble 
and  refined  women  keep  to  themselves,  of  which  you  men 
know  nothing,  even  when  a  man  is  so  like  a  woman  as  you 
are  at  this  moment. 

"Finally,  you  have  a  mother  who  has  shown  you  what  a 
woman's  life  ought  to  be;  pure  and  spotless,  she  has  fulfilled 
her  fate  nobly  ;  all  I  know  of  her  has  filled  my  eyes  with 
tears  of  envy  which  has  risen  from  the  depths  of  my  heart. 


BEATRIX.  177 

I  might  have  been  like  her  !     Calyste,  this  is  what  your  wife 
ought  to  be;  this  is  what  her  life  ought  to  be. 

"  I  will  not  again  cast  you  back  maliciously,  as  I  have  done, 
on  little  Charlotte,  who  would  bore  you  from  the  first,  but  on 
some  exquisite  girl  who  is  worthy  of  you.  If  I  gave  myself 
to  you,  I  should  spoil  your  life.  Either  you  would  fail  in 
faithfulness,  in  constancy,  or  you  would  resolve  to  devote 
your  life  to  me :  I  will  be  honest — I  should  take  it ;  I  should 
carry  you  off  I. know  not  whither,  far  from  the  world;  I 
should  make  you  very  unhappy  ;  I  am  jealous.  I  see  mon- 
sters in  a  drop  of  water ;  I  am  in  despair  over  odious  trifles 
which  many  women  put  up  with  ;  there  are  even  inexorable 
thoughts,  originating  in  myself,  not  caused  by  you,  which 
would  wound  me  to  death.  When  a  man  is  not  as  respectful 
and  as  delicate  in  the  tenth  year  of  his  happiness  as  he  was 
on  the  eve  of  the  day  when  he  was  a  beggar  for  a  favor,  he 
seems  to  me  a  wretch  and  degrades  me  in  my  own  eyes. 
Such  a  lover  no  longer  believes  in  the  Amadis  and  Cyrus  of 
my  dreams.  In  our  day  love  is  purely  mythical ;  and  in  you 
I  find  no  more  than  the  fatuity  of  a  desire  which  knows  not 
its  end.  I  am  not  forty  ;  I  cannot  yet  bring  my  pride  to 
bend  to  the  authority  of  experience  ;  I  know  not  the  love 
that  could  make  me  humble  ;  in  fact,  I  am  a  woman  whose 
nature  is  still  too  youthful  not  to  be  detestable.  I  cannot 
answer  for  my  moods  ;  all  my  graciousness  is  on  the  surface. 
Perhaps  I  have  not  suffered  enough  yet  to  have  acquired  the 
indulgent  ways,  the  perfect  tenderness  that  we  owe  to  cruel 
deceptions.  Happiness  has  its  impertinence,  and  I  am  very 
impertinent.  Camille  will  always  be  your  devoted  slave,  I 
should  be  an  unreasonable  tyrant. 

"  Indeed,  is  not  Camille  set  by  your  side  by  your  good 
angel,  to  guard  you  till  you  have  reached  the  moment  when 
you  must  start  on  the  life  that  is  in  store  for  you,  and  which 
you  must  not  fail  in  ?  I  know  Felicite  !  Her  tenderness  is 
inexhaustible ;  she  may  perhaps  lack  some  of  the  graces  of  her 
12 


178  BE  A  TRIX. 

sex,  but  she  shows  that  vivifying  strength,  that  genius  for  con« 
stancy,  and  that  lofty  courage  which  make  everything  accept- 
able. She  will  see  you  marry  while  suffering  tortures;  she  will 
find  you  a  free  Beatrix,  if  Beatrix  fulfills  your  ideal  of  woman 
and  answers  to  your  dreams ;  she  will  smooth  out  all  the  diffi- 
culties in  your  future  life.  The  sale  of  a  single  acre  of  her 
land  in  Paris  will  redeem  your  estates  in  Brittany  ;  she  will 
make  you  her  heir — has  she  not  already  adopted  you  as  a 
son  ?  And  I,  alas  !  What  can  I  do  for  your  happiness  ? 
Nothing. 

"  Do  not  be  false  to  an  immeasurable  affection  which  has 
made  up  its  mind  to  the  duties  of  motherliness.  To  me  she 
seems  most  happy — this  Camille  !  The  admiration  you  feel 
for  poor  Beatrix  is  such  a  peccadillo  as  women  of  Camille's 
age  view  with  the  greatest  indulgence.  When  they  are  sure 
of  being  loved  they  will  allow  constancy  a  little  infidelity ; 
nay,  one  of  their  keenest  pleasures  is  to  triumph  over  the 
youth  of  their  rivals. 

"  Camille  is  superior  to  other  women,  all  this  does  not  bear 
upon  her;  I  only  say  it  to  reassure  your  conscience.  I  have 
studied  Camille  well ;  she  is  in  my  eyes  one  of  the  grandest 
figures  of  our  time.  She  is  both  clever  and  kind,  two  quali- 
ties rarely  united  in  a  woman  ;  she  is  generous  and  simple,  two 
more  great  qualities  seldom  found  together.  I  have  seen  trust- 
worthy treasures  in  the  depths  of  her  heart ;  it  would  seem 
as  though  Dante  had  written  for  her  in  the  '  Paradiso '  the 
beautiful  lines  on  eternal  happiness  which  she  was  interpreting 
to  you  the  other  evening,  ending  with  Senza  brama  sicura 
richezza. 

"  She  has  talked  to  me  of  her  fate  in  life,  told  me  all  her 
experience,  and  proved  to  me  that  love,  the  object  of  our  de- 
sires and  dreams,  had  always  evaded  her ;  I  replied  that  she 
seemed  to  me  a  proof  of  that  difficulty  of  matching  anything 
sublime,  which  accounts  for  much  unhappiness.  Yours  is  one 
of  the  angelic  souls  whose  sister-soul  it  seems  impossible  to 


BEATRIX.  179 

And.  This  misfortune,  dear  child,  is  what  Camille  will  spare 
you;  even  if  she  should  die  for  it,  she  will  find  you  a  being 
with  whom  you  may  live  happy  as  a  husband. 

"  I  offer  you  a  friend's  hand,  and  trust,  not  to  your  heart, 
but  to  your  sense,  to  find  that  we  are  henceforth  to  each  other 
a  brother  and  sister,  and  to  terminate  our  correspondence, 
which,  between  les  Touches  and  Guerande,  is  odd,  to  say  the 
least  of  it. 

"Beatrix  de  Casteran." 

The  Baroness,  in  the  highest  degree  excited  by  the  details 
and  progress  of  her  son's  love  affairs  with  the  beautiful  Roche- 
fide,  could  not  sit  still  in  the  room,  where  she  was  working  at 
her  cross-stitch,  looking  up  at  every  stitch  to  watch  Calyste  ; 
she  rose  from  her  chair  and  came  up  to  him  with  a  mixture  of 
diffidence  and  boldness.  The  mother  had  all  the  graces  of  a 
courtesan  about  to  ask  a  favor. 

"Well?"  said  she,  trembling,  but  not  actually  asking  to 
see  the  letter. 

Calyste  showed  it  her  in  his  hand,  and  read  it  aloud  to  her. 
The  two  noble  souls,  so  simple  and  ingenuous,  discovered  in 
this  astute  and  perfidious  reply  none  of  the  treachery  and 
snares  infused  into  it  by  the  Marquise. 

"She  is  a  noble  and  high-minded  woman!"  said  the 
Baroness,  whose  eyes  glistened  with  moisture.  "I  will  pray 
to  God  for  her.  I  never  believed  that  a  mother  could  desert 
her  husband  and  child  and  preserve  so  much  virtue.  She 
deserves  to  be  forgiven." 

"Am  I  not  right  to  worship  her?"   cried  Calyste. 

"  But  whither  will  this  love  lead  you?"  said  his  mother. 
"Oh!  my  child,  how  dangerous  are  these  women  of  noble 
sentiments!  Bad  women  are  less  to  be  feared.  Marry 
Charlotte  de  Kergarouet,  and  release  two-thirds  of  the  family 
estates.  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  can  achieve  this  great 
end  by  selling  a  few  farms,  and  the  good  soul  will  devote 


180  BEATRIX. 

herself  to  improving  the  property.  You  may  leave  your 
children  a  noble  name,  a  fine  fortune " 

"What,  forget  Beatrix?"  said  Calyste  in  a  hollow  voice, 
his  eyes  fixed  on  the  floor. 

He  left  his  mother,  and  went  up  to  his  room  to  reply  to  this 
letter. 

Madame  du  Guenic  had  Madame  de  Rochefide's  words 
stamped  on  her  heart :  she  wanted  to  know  on  what  Calyste 
founded  his  hopes.  At  about  this  hour  the  chevalier  would 
be  exercising  his  dog  on  the  mall ;  the  Baroness,  sure  of 
finding  him  there,  put  on  a  bonnet  and  shawl  and  went  out. 
It  was  so  extraordinary  an  event  to  see  Madame  du  Guenic 
out,  excepting  at  church,  or  in  one  of  the  two  pretty  alleys 
that  were  frequented  on  fete-days,  when  she  would  accompany 
her  husband  and  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel,  that,  within  two 
hours,  every  one  was  saying  to  every  one  else,  "  Madame  du 
Guenic  was  out  to-day  ;  did  you  see  her?  "  Thus  before  long 
the  news  came  to  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel's  ears,  and  she 
said  to  her  niece — 

"  Something  very  strange  is  certainly  happening  at  the  du 
GuenicsV 

"  Calyste  is  madly  in  love  with  the  beautiful  Marquise  de 
Rochefide,"  said  Charlotte.  "I  should  do  better  to  leave 
Guerande  and  go  back  to  Nantes." 

At  this  moment  the  Chevalier  du  Halga,  surprised  at  being 
sought  out  by  the  Baroness,  had  released  Thisbe  from  her 
cord,  recognizing  the  impossibility  of  attending  to  two  ladies 
at  once. 

"  Chevalier,  you  have  had  some  experience  in  love  affairs  ?" 
said  the  Baroness. 

Captain  du  Halga  drew  himself  up  with  not  a  little  of  the 
airs  of  a  coxcomb.  Madame  du  Guenic,  without  naming  her 
son  or  the  Marquise,  told  him  the  contents  of  the  love  letter, 
asking  him  what  could  be  the  meaning  of  such  an  answer. 
The  chevalier  stood  with   his  nose  in   the  air  caressing  his 


BE  A  TRIX.  181 

chin ;  he  listened  with  little  grimaces ;  and  at  last  he  looked 
keenly  at  the  Baroness. 

"  When  a  thoroughbred  horse  means  to  leap  a  fence,  it  goes 
up  to  it  first  to  smell  it  and  examine  it,"  he  said.  "  Calyste 
will  be  the  happiest  young  rogue " 

"  Hush  !  "   said  the  Baroness. 

"  I  am  dumb.  In  old  times  that  was  my  only  point,"  said 
the  old  man.  "It  is  fine  weather,"  he  went  on  after  a  pause, 
"  the  wind    is   northeasterly.       By   heaven  !    how  the  Belle- 

Poule  danced   before   that  wind  on   the  day But,"  he 

went  on,  interrupting  himself,  "  I  have  a  singing  in  my  ears 
and  pains  in  the  false-ribs;  the  weather  will  change.  You 
know  that  the  fight  of  the  Belle-Poule  was  so  famous  that 
ladies  wore  Belle-Poule  caps.  Madame  de  Kergarouet  was 
the  first  to  appear  at  the  opera  in  such  a  head-dress.  '  You 
are  dressed  for  conquest,'  I  said  to  her.  The  words  were 
repeated  in  every  box." 

The  Baroness  listened  politely  to  the  old  man,  who,  faithful 
to  the  laws  of  old-world  etiquette,  escorted  her  back  to  the 
little  street,  neglecting  Thisbe.  He  let  out  the  secret  of 
Thisbe's  birth.  She  was  the  granddaughter  of  that  sweet 
Thisbe  that  had  belonged  to  Madame  la  Comtesse  de  Kerga- 
rouet, the  Admiral's  first  wife.  This  Thisbe  the  third  was 
eighteen  years  old. 

The  Baroness  ran  lightly  up  to  Calyste's  room,  as  gleeful  as 
if  she  were  in  love  herself.  Calyste  was  not  there,  but  Fanny 
saw  a  letter  on  the  table  addressed  to  Madame  de  Rochefide, 
folded,  but  not  sealed.  Irresistible  curiosity  prompted  the 
anxious  mother  to  read  her  son's  answer.  The  indiscretion 
was  cruelly  punished ;  she  felt  horrible  anguish  when  she  saw 
the  precipice  toward  which  love  was  driving  Calyste. 

Calyste  to  Beatrix. 
"  What  do  I  care  for  the  family  of  du  Guenic  in  such  times 
as  we  live  in,  dearest  Beatrix  !     My  name  is  Beatrix,  the  hap- 


182  BE  A  TRIX. 

piness  of  Beatrix  is  my  happiness,  her  life  is  my  life,  and  all 
my  fortune  is  in  her  heart.  Our  lands  have  been  in  pledge 
these  two  hundred  years,  and  may  remain  so  for  two  hundred 
more ;  our  farmers  have  them,  no  one  can  take  them  away. 
To  see  and  love  you  !     That  is  my  religion. 

"Marry!  The  idea  has  made  me  heartsick.  Are  there 
two  such  as  Beatrix  ?  I  will  marry  no  one  but  you ;  I  will 
wait  twenty  years  if  I  must ;  I  am  young,  and  you  will  always 
be  beautiful.  My  mother  is  a  saint,  and  it  is  not  for  me  to 
judge  her.  She  never  loved  !  I  know  how  much  she  has 
lost,  and  what  sacrifices  she  has  made.  You,  Beatrix,  haVe 
taught  me  to  love  my  mother  better ;  she  dwells  in  my  heart 
with  you — there  will  never  be  any  one  else  ;  she  is  your  only 
rival.  Is  not  this  as  much  as  to  say  that  no  one  shares 
your  throne  ?  So  your  reassuring  letter  has  no  effect  on  my 
mind. 

"As  to  Camille,  you  have  only  to  give  me  a  hint,  and  I  will 
beg  her  to  tell  you  herself  that  I  do  not  love  her  ;  she  is  the 
mother  of  my  intelligence ;  nothing  more,  nothing  less.  As 
soon  as  I  saw  you  she  became  a  sister  to  me,  my  friend — my 
man  friend — what  you  will ;  but  we  have  no  claims  on  each 
other  beyond  those  of  friendship.  I  thought  she  was  a  woman 
till  the  moment  when  I  first  saw  you.  But  you  show  me  that 
Camille  is  a  man;  she  swims,  hunts,  rides;  she  smokes  and 
drinks  ;  she  writes,  she  can  analyze  a  book  or  a  heart ;  she  has 
not  the  smallest  weakness ;  she  walks  on  in  her  strength  ;  she 
has  not  your  free  grace,  your  step  like  the  flight  of  a  bird, 
your  voice — the  voice  of  love — your  arch  looks,  your  gracious 
demeanor.  She  is  Camille  Maupin,  and  nothing  else  ;  she  has 
nothing  of  the  woman  about  her,  and  you  have  everything 
that  I  love  in  woman  ;  I  felt  from  the  day  when  I  first  saw 
you  that  you  were  mine. 

"You  will  laugh  at  this  feeling,  but  it  has  gone  on  in- 
creasing ;  it  strikes  me  as  monstrous  that  we  should  be  divided  ; 
you  are  my  soul,  my  life,  and  I  cannot  live  where  you  are 


BE  A  TRIX.  183 

not.  Let  me  love  you  !  We  will  fly,  we  will  go  far,  far  from 
the  world,  into  some  country  where  you  will  know  nobody, 
and  where  you  will  have  no  one  but  me  and  God  in  your 
heart.  My  mother,  who  loves  you,  will  come  some  day  to 
live  with  us.  Ireland  has  many  country  houses,  and  my 
mother's  family  will  surely  lend  us  one.  Great  God  !  Let  us 
be  off!  A  boat,  some  sailors,  and  we  shall  be  there  before 
any  one  can  guess  whither  we  have  fled  from  the  world  you 
dread  so  greatly. 

"  You  have  never  been  loved;  I  feel  it  as  I  re-read  your 
letter,  and  I  fancy  I  can  perceive  that,  if  none  of  the  reasons 
of  which  you  speak  existed,  you  would  allow  yourself  to  be 
loved  by  me.     Beatrix,  a  holy  love  will  wipe  out  the  past. 

"Is  it  possible  in  your  presence  to  think  of  anything  but 
you  ?  Oh  !  I  love  so  much  that  I  could  wish  you  a  thousand 
times  disgraced,  so  as  to  prove  to  you  the  power  of  my  love 
by  adoring  you  as  if  you  were  the  holiest  of  creatures.  You 
call  my  love  for  you  an  insult.  Oh,  Beatrix,  you  do  not  think 
that !  The  love  of  'a  noble  child  ' — you  call  me  so — would 
do  honor  to  a  queen. 

"  So  to-morrow  we  will  wander  lover-like  along  by  the  rocks 
and  the  sea,  and  you  shall  tread  the  sands  of  old  Brittany  and 
consecrate  them  anew  for  me.  Give  me  that  day  of  joy,  and 
the  transient  alms — leaving  perhaps,  alas  !  no  trace  on  your 
memory — will  be  a  perennial  treasure  to  Calyste " 

The  Baroness  dropped  the  letter  unfinished  ;  she  knelt  on  a 
chair  and  put  up  a  silent  prayer  to  God,  imploring  Him  to  pre- 
serve her  son's  wits,  to  deliver  him  from  madness  and  error, 
and  snatch  him  back  from  the  ways  in  which  she  saw  him 
rushing. 

"  What  are  you  doing,  mother?  "  said  Calyste's  voice. 

"Praying  for  you,"  she  replied,  looking  at  him  with  eyes 
full  of  tears.  "I  have  been  so  wrong  as  to  read  this  letter. 
My  Calyste  is  gone  mad." 


184  JSt-ATKlJi.. 

"It  is  the  sweetest  form  of  madness,"  said  the  youth,  kiss- 
ing his  mother. 

"  I  should  like  to  see  this  woman,  my  child." 

"  Well,  mamma,  we  shall  take  a  boat  to-morrow  to  cross 
over  to  le  Croisic;  come  to  the  jetty." 

He  sealed  his  letter  and  went  off  to  les  Touches.  The 
thing  which  above  all  others  appalled  the  Baroness  was  to  see 
that,  by  sheer  force  of  instinct,  feeling  could  acquire  the  in- 
sight of  consummate  experience.  Calyste  had  written  to 
Beatrix  as  he  might  have  done  under  the  guidance  of  Monsieur 
du  Halga. 

One  of  the  greatest  joys,  perhaps,  that  a  small  mind  can 
know  is  that  of  duping  a  great  soul  and  catching  it  in  a  snare. 
Beatrix  knew  herself  to  be  very  inferior  to  Camille  Maupin. 
This  inferiority  was  not  merely  in  the  sum-total  of  intellectual 
qualities  known  as  talent,  but  also  in  those  qualities  of  the 
heart  that  are  called  passion.  At  the  moment  when  Calyste 
arrived  at  les  Touches,  with  the  impetuous  haste  of  first  love 
borne  on  the  pinions  of  hope,  the  Marquise  was  conscious  of 
keen  satisfaction  in  knowing  herself  to  be  loved  by  this  charm- 
ing youth.  She  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  wish  to  be  his  accom- 
plice in  this  feeling  ;  she  made  it  a  point  of  heroism  to  repress 
this  capriccio,  as  the  Italians  say,  and  fancied  she  would  thus 
be  on  a  par  with  her  friend  ;  she  was  happy  to  be  able  to 
make  her  some  sacrifice.  In  short,  the  vanities  peculiar  to  a 
Frenchwoman,  which  constitute  the  famous  coquetterie  whence 
she  derives  her  superiority,  were  in  her  flattered  and  amply 
satisfied  ;  she  was  tempted  by  the  utmost  seduction,  and  she 
resisted  it ;  her  virtues  sang  a  sweet  concert  of  praise  in  her  ear. 

The  two  women,  apparently  indolent,  were  lounging  on  the 
divan  in  that  little  drawing-room  so  full  of  harmony,  in  the 
midst  of  a  world  of  flowers,  with  the  window  open,  for  the 
north  winds  had  ceased  to  blow.  A  melting  southerly  breeze 
dimpled  the  salt-water  lake  that  they  could  see  in  front  of 


BE  A  TR1X.  185 

them,  and  the  sun  scorched  the  golden  sands.  Their  spirits 
were  as  deeply  tossed  as  nature  lay  calm,  and  not  less  burning. 
Camille,  broken  on  the  wheel  of  the  machinery  she  was  work- 
ing, was  obliged  to  keep  a  guard  over  herself,  the  friendly  foe 
she  had  admitted  into  her  cage  was  so  prodigiously  keen  ;  not 
to  betray  her  secret  she  gave  herself  up  to  observing  the  secrets 
of  nature ;  she  cheated  her  pain  by  seeking  a  meaning  in  the 
motions  of  the  spheres,  and  found  God  in  the  sublime  solitude 
of  the  sky. 

When  once  an  infidel  acknowledges  God,  he  throws  him- 
self headlong  into  Catholicism,  which,  viewed  as  a  system,  is 
perfect. 

That  morning  Camille  had  shown  the  Marquise  a  face  still 
radiant  with  the  light  of  her  research,  carried  on  during  a 
night  spent  in  lamentation.  Calyste  was  always  before  her 
like  a  heavenly  vision.  She  regarded  this  beautiful  youth,  to 
whom  she  devoted  herself,  as  her  guardian  angel.  Was  it  not 
he  who  was  leading  her  to  the  supernal  regions  where  suffer- 
ings have  an  end  under  the  weight  of  incomprehensible  im- 
mensity? Still,  Camille  was  made  uneasy  by  Beatrix's  tri- 
umphant looks.  One  woman  does  not  gain  such  an  advantage 
over  another  without  allowing  it  to  be  guessed,  while  justifying 
herself  for  having  taken  it.  Nothing  could  be  stranger  than 
this  covert  moral  struggle  between  the  two  friends,  each  hiding 
a  secret  from  the  other,  and  each  believing  herself  to  be  the 
creditor  for  unspoken  sacrifices. 

Calyste  arrived  holding  his  letter  under  his  glove,  ready  to 
.,  slip  it  into  Beatrix's  hand.  Camille,  who  had  not  failed  to 
mark  the  change  in  her  guest's  manner,  affected  not  to  look 
at  her,  but  studied  her  in  a  mirror  just  when  Calyste  made  his 
entrance.  That  is  the  sunken  rock  for  every  woman.  The 
cleverest  and  the  most  stupid,  the  most  frank  and  the  most 
astute,  are  not  then  mistress  of  their  secret ;  at  that  moment 
it  blazes  out  to  another  woman's  eyes.  Too  much  reserve  or 
too  much  freedom,  an  open  and  a  beaming  glance,  or  a  mys- 


186  BEATRIX. 

terious  droop  of  the  eyelids — everything  then  reveals  the  feel- 
ing above  all  others  difficult  to  conceal,  for  indifference  is  so 
absolutely  cold  that  it  can  never  be  well  acted.  Women  have 
the  genius  of  shades  of  manner — they  use  them  too  often  not 
to  know  them  all — and  on  these  occasions  they  take  in  a  rival 
from  head  to  foot  at  a  glance  ;  they  see  the  slightest  twitch 
of  a  foot  under  a  petticoat,  the  most  imperceptible  start  in  the 
figure,  and  know  the  meaning  of  what  to  a  man  seems  to  have 
none.  Two  women  watching  one  another  play  one  of  the 
finest  comedies  to  be  seen. 

"  Calyste  has  committed  some  folly,"  thought  Camille, 
observing  in  both  of  them  the  indefinable  look  of  persons  who 
understand  each  other. 

There  was  no  formality  or  affected  indifference  in  the  Mar- 
quise now ;  she  looked  at  Calyste  as  if  he  belonged  to  her. 
Calyste  explained  matters  ;  he  reddened  like  a  guilty  creature, 
like  a  happy  lover.  He  had  just  settled  everything  for  their 
excursion  on  the  morrow. 

"Then  you  are  really  going,  my  dear?"  said  Camille. 

"Yes,"  said  Beatrix. 

"  How  did  you  know  that  ?  "  said  Mademoiselle  des  Touches 
to  Calyste. 

"  I  have  come  to  ask,"  he  replied,  at  a  glance  shot  at  him 
by  Madame  de  Rochefide,  who  did  not  wish  her  friend  to 
have  any  suspicion  of  their  correspondence. 

"They  have  already  come  to  an  understanding,"  said  Ca- 
mille to  herself,  catching  this  look  by  a  side-glance  from  the 
corner  of  her  eye.  "  It  is  all  over ;  there  is  nothing  left  to 
me  but  to  disappear." 

And  under  the  pressure  of  this  thought,  a  deathlike  change 
passed  over  her  face  that  gave  Beatrix  a  chill. 

"What  is  the  matter,  dear?"  said  she. 

"  Nothing.  Then,  Calyste,  will  you  send  on  my  horses 
and  yours  so  that  we  may  find  them  ready  on  the  other  side 
of  le  Croisic  and  ride  back  through  le  Bourg  de  Batz  ?     We 


BE  A  TRIX.  187 

will  breakfast  at  le  Croisic  and  dine  here.  You  will  under- 
take to  find  boatmen.  We  will  start  at  half-past  eight  in 
the  morning.  Such  fine  scenery!"  she  added  to  Beatrix. 
"You  will  see  Cambremer,  a  man  who  is  doing  penance  on  a 
rock  for  having  murdered  his  son.  Oh  !  you  are  in  a  primi- 
tive land  where  men  do  not  feel  like  the  common  herd. 
Calyste  will  tell  you  the  story." 

She  went  into  her  room  ;  she  was  stifling.  Calyste  deliv- 
ered his  letter  and  followed  Camille. 

"Calyste,  she  loves  you,  I  believe;  but  you  are  hiding 
something;  you  have  certainly  disobeyed  my  injunctions." 

"  She  loves  me  !  "  said  he,  dropping  into  a  chair. 

Camille  looked  out  at  the  door.  Beatrix  had  vanished. 
This  was  strange.  A  woman  does  not  fly  from  a  room  where 
the  man  is  whom  she  loves  and  whom  she  is  certain  to  see 
again,  unless  she  has  something  better  to  do.  Mademoiselle 
des  Touches  asked  herself,  "  Can  she  have  a  letter  from  Ca- 
lyste ?  "  But  she  thought  the  innocent  lad  incapable  of  such 
audacity. 

"If  you  have  disobeyed  me,  all  is  lost  by  your  own 
fault,"  said  she  gravely.  "Go  and  prepare  for  the  joys  of 
to-morrow." 

She  dismissed  him  with  a  gesture  which  Calyste  could  not 
rebel  against.  There  are  silent  sorrows  that  are  despotically 
eloquent.  As  he  went  to  le  Croisic  to  find  the  boatmen,  Ca- 
lyste had  some  qualms  of  fear.  Camille's  speech  bore  a  stamp 
of  doom  that  revealed  the  foresight  of  a  mother. 

Four  hours  later,  when  he  returned,  very  tired,  counting  on 
dining  at  les  Touches,  he  was  met  at  the  door  by  Camille's 
maid,  who  told  him  that  her  mistress  and  the  Marquise  could 
not  see  him  this  evening.  Calyste  was  surprised,  and  wanted 
to  question  the  maid,  but  she  shut  the  door  and  vanished. 

Six  o'clock  was  striking  by  the  clocks  of  Guerande.  Ca- 
lyste went  home,  asked  for  some  dinner,  and  then  played 
mouche,  a  prey  to  gloomy  meditations.     These  alternations  of 


188  BE  A  TRIX. 

joy  and  grief,  the  overthrow  of  his  hopes  following  hard 
upon  what  seemed  the  certainty  that  he  was  loved,  crushed 
the  young  soul  that  had  been  soaring  heavenward  to  the  sky, 
and  had  risen  so  high  that  the  fall  must  be  tremendous. 

"What  ails  you,  my  Calyste  ?  "  his  mother  whispered  to 
him. 

"Nothing,"  said  he,  looking  at  her  with  eyes  whence  the 
light  of  his  soul  and  the  flame  of  love  had  died  out. 

It  is  not  hope  but  despair  that  gives  the  measure  of  our 
ambitions.  We  give  ourselves  over  in  secret  to  the  beautiful 
poems  of  hope,  while  grief  shows  itself  unveiled. 

"Calyste,  you  are  not  at  all  nice,"  said  Charlotte,  after 
vainly  wasting  on  him  those  little  provincial  teasing  ways 
which  always  degenerate  into  annoyance. 

"I  am  tired,"  he  said,  rising  and  bidding  the  party  good- 
night. 

"Calyste  is  much  altered,"  said  Mademoiselle  de  Pen- 
Hoel. 

"  We  haven't  fine  gowns  covered  with  lace;  we  don't 
flourish  our  sleeves  like  this  ;  we  don't  sit  so,  or  know  how  to 
look  on  one  side  and  wriggle  our  heads,"  said  Charlotte, 
imitating  and  caricaturing  the  Marquise's  airs  and  attitude 
and  looks.  "  We  haven't  a  voice  with  a  squeak  in  the  head, 
or  a  little  interesting  cough,  heugh  /  heugh  !  like  the  sigh  of 
a  ghost  ;  we  are  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  robust  health, 
and  be  fond  of  our  friends  without  any  nonsense;  when 
we  look  at  them  we  do  not  seem  to  be  stabbing  them 
with  a  dart,  or  examining  them  with  a  hypocritical  glance. 
We  don't  know  how  to  droop  our  heads  like  a  weeping  wil- 
low, and  appear  quite  affable  merely  by  raising  it,  so  !  " 

Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  could  not  help  laughing  at  her 
niece's  performance  ;  but  neither  the  chevalier  nor  the  Baron 
understood  this  satire  of  the  country  on  Paris. 

"But  the  Marquise  de  Rochefide  is  very  handsome,"  said 
the  old  lady. 


BEATRIX.  189 

"My  dear,"  said  the  Baroness  to  her  husband,  "  I  happen 
to  know  that  she  is  going  to-morrow  to  le  Croisic  ;  we  will 
walk  down  there.     I  should  very  much  like  to  meet  her." 

While  Calyste  was  racking  his  brain  to  divine  why  the  door 
of  les  Touches  should  have  been  closed  in  his  face,  a  scene 
was  taking  place  between  the  two  friends  which  was  to  have 
its  effect  on  the  events  of  the  morrow.  Calyste's  letter  had 
given  birth  to  unknown  emotions  in  Madame  de  Rochefide's 
heart.  A  woman  is  not  often  the  object  of  a  passion  so  youth- 
ful, so  guileless,  so  sincere  and  absolute  as  was  this  boy's. 
Beatrix  had  loved  more  than  she  had  been  loved.  After 
being  a  slave  she  felt  an  unaccountable  longing  to  be  the 
tyrant  in  her  turn. 

In  the  midst  of  her  joy,  as  she  read  and  re-read  Calyste's 
letter,  a  cruel  thought  pierced  her  like  a  stab.  What  had 
Calyste  and  Camille  been  about  together  since  Claud  Vignon's 
departure?  If  Calyste  did  not  love  Camille,  and  Camille 
knew  it,  what  did  they  do  in  those  long  mornings?  The 
memory  of  her  brain  insidiously  compared  this  remark  with 
all  Camille  had  said.  It  was  as  though  a  smiling  devil  held 
up  before  her,  as  in  a  mirror,  the  portrait  of  her  heroic  friend, 
with  certain  looks,  certain  gestures,  which  finally  enlightened 
Beatrix.  Far  from  being  Felicite's  equal,  she  was  crushed  by 
her ;  far  from  deceiving  her,  it  was  she  who  was  deceived ; 
she  herself  was  but  a  toy  that  Camille  wanted  to  give  the 
child  she  loved  with  an  extraordinary  and  never  vulgar 
passion. 

To  a  woman  like  Beatrix  this  discovery  was  a  thunderbolt. 
She  recalled  every  detail  of  the  past  week.  In  an  instant 
Camille's  part  and  her  own  lay  before  her  in  their  fullest 
development ;  she  saw  herself  strangely  abased.  In  the  rush 
of  her  jealous  hatred  she  fancied  she  detected  in  Camille  some 
plot  of  revenge  on  Conti.  All  the  events  of  the  past  two 
years  had  perhaps  led  up  to  these  two  weeks.  Once  started 
on  the  downward  slope  of  suspicions,  hypotheses,  and  anger. 


190  BEATRIX. 

Beatrix  did  not  check  herself;  she  walked  up  and  down  her 
rooms,  spurred  by  impulses  of  passion,  or,  sitting  down  now 
and  again,  tried  to  make  a  plan  ;  still,  until  the  dinner-hour, 
she  remained  a  prey  to  indecision,  and  only  went  down  when 
dinner  was  served  without  changing  her  dress. 

On  seeing  her  rival  come  in,  Camille  guessed  everything. 
Beatrix,  in  morning  dress,  had  a  cold  look  and  an  expression 
of  reserve,  which  to  an  observer  so  keen  as  Camille  betrayed 
the  animosity  of  embittered  feelings.  Camille  immediately 
left  the  room  and  gave  the  order  that  had  so  greatly  astonished 
Calyste ;  she  thought  that  if  the  guileless  lad,  with  his  insane 
adoration,  came  into  the  middle  of  the  quarrel  he  might  never 
see  Beatrix  again,  and  compromise  the  future  of  his  passion  by 
some  foolish  bluntness.  She  meant  to  fight  out  this  duel  of 
dupery  without  any  witness.  Beatrix,  with  no  one  to  uphold 
her,  must  certainly  yield.  Camille  knew  how  shallow  her 
soul  was,  and  how  mean  her  pride,  to  which  she  had  justly 
given  the  name  of  obstinacy. 

The  dinner  was  gloomy.  Both  the  women  had  too  much 
spirit  and  good  taste  to  have  any  explanation  before  the 
servants,  or  when  they  might  listen  at  the  doors.  Camille 
was  gentle  and  kind ;  she  felt  herself  so  much  the  superior ! 
The  Marquise  was  hard  and  biting ;  she  knew  she  was  being 
fooled  like  a  child.  There  was,  all  through  dinner,  a  warfare 
of  looks,  shrugs,  half-spoken  words,  to  which  the  servants 
could  have  no  clue,  but  which  gave  warning  of  a  terrible 
storm.  When  they  were  going  upstairs  again  Camille  mis- 
chievously offered  Beatrix  her  arm  ;  the  Marquise  affected  not 
to  see,  and  rushed  forward  alone.  As  soon  as  coffee  was 
served,  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  said  to  her  servant,  "  You 
can  go,"  and  this  was  the  signal  for  battle. 

"  The  romances  you  act  out,  my  dear,  are  rather  more 
dangerous  than  those  you  write,"  said  the  Marquise. 

"They  have,  however,  one  great  merit,"  said  Camille, 
taking  a  cigarette. 


BE  A  TRIX.  191 

"What  is  that?"  asked  Beatrix. 

"They  are  unpublished,  my  angel." 

"Will  that  in  which  you  have  plunged  me  make  a  book?" 

"I  have  no  genius  for  the  task  of  GEdipus;  you  have  the 
wit  and  beauty  of  the  sphinx,  I  know,  but  do  not  ask  me  any 
riddles;  speak  out,  my  dear  Beatrix." 

"  When  in  order  to  make  men  happy,  to  amuse  them,  please 
them,  dispel  their  annoyances,  we  appeal  to  the  devil  himself 
to  help  us " 

"  The  men  blame  us  afterward  for  our  endeavor,  and  be- 
lieve it  to  be  dictated  by  a  spirit  of  depravity,"  said  Camille, 
taking  her  cigarette  from  her  lips  to  interrupt  her  friend. 

"  They  forget  the  love  which  carried  us  away,  and  which 
justified  our  excesses — for  whither  may  we  not  be  carried? 
But  they  are  only  playing  out  their  part  as  men,  they  are  un- 
grateful and  unjust,"  said  Beatrix.  "Women  know  each 
other ;  they  know  how  truly  lofty  and  noble  their  attitude  is 
under  all  circumstances — nay,  I  may  say,  how  virtuous. 

"  Still,  Camille,  I  have  begun  to  perceive  the  truth  of  cer- 
tain remarks  I  have  heard  you  complain  of.  Yes,  my  dear, 
there  is  something  of  the  man  in  you ;  you  behave  like  men  ; 
nothing  checks  you ;  and  if  you  have  not  all  their  merits  your 
mind  conducts  itself  like  theirs,  and  you  share  their  contempt 
for  us  women.  I  have  no  reason  to  be  pleased  with  you,  my 
dear,  and  I  am  too  frank  to  conceal  the  fact.  Nobody,  per- 
haps, will  ever  inflict  so  deep  a  wound  on  my  heart  as  that  I 
am  now  suffering  from.  Though  you  are  not  always  a  woman 
in  love  matters,  you  become  one  again  in  revenge.  Only  a 
woman  of  genius  could  have  discovered  the  tenderest  spot  in 
our  delicate  sentiments — I  am  speaking  of  Calyste,  and  of  the 
trickery,  my  dear,  for  that  is  the  right  word,  that  you  have 
employed  against  me.  How  low  you  have  fallen,  you,  Camille 
Maupin  ;  and  to  what  end?  " 

"Still  and  still  more  the  sphinx,"  said  Camille,  smiling. 

"  You  wanted  to  make  me  throw  myself  at  Calyste's  head  ; 


192  BEATRIX. 

I  am  still  too  young  for  such  doings.  To  me  love  is 
love,  with  its  intolerable  jealousy  and  despotic  demands.  I 
am  not  a  writer;  it  is  not  possible  to  me  to  find  ideas  in 
feelings " 

"  You  think  yourself  capable  of  loving  foolishly  ?  "  Camille 
asked  her.  "  Be  quite  easy,  you  still  have  all  your  wits  about 
you.  You  malign  yourself,  my  dear ;  you  are  cold  enough  for 
your  head  always  to  remain  supreme  judge  of  the  achieve- 
ments of  your  heart." 

This  epigram  brought  the  color  to  the  Marquise's  face;  she 
shot  a  look  full  of  hatred,  an  envenomed  look,  at  Camille ; 
and  at  once,  without  stopping  to  choose  them,  let  fly  all  the 
sharpest  arrows  in  her  quiver.  Camille,  smoking  her  cigarettes, 
listened  calmly  to  this  furious  attack,  bristling  with  such  viru- 
lent abuse  that  it  is  impossible  to  record  it.  Beatrix,  provoked 
by  her  adversary's  imperturbable  manner,  fell  back  on  odious 
personalities  and  Mademoiselle  des  Touches'  age. 

"  Is  that  all?  "  asked  Camille,  blowing  a  cloud  of  smoke. 
"Are  you  in  love  with  Calyste?  " 

"  Certainly  not." 

"So  much  the  better,"  replied  Camille.  "I  am,  and  far 
too  much  for  my  happiness.  He  has,  no  doubt,  a  fancy  for 
you.  You  are  the  loveliest  blonde  in  the  world,  and  I  am  as 
brown  as  a  mole ;  you  are  slim  and  slender,  my  figure  is  too 
dignified.  In  short,  you  are  young  ;  that  is  the  great  fact, 
and  you  have  not  spared  me.  You  have  made  an  abuse  of 
your  advantages  over  me  as  a  woman,  neither  more  nor  less 
than  as  a  comic  paper  makes  an  abuse  of  humor.  I  have  done 
all  in  my  power  to  prevent  what  is  now  inevitable,"  and  she 
raised  her  eyes  to  the  ceiling.  "However  little  I  may  seem 
to  be  a  woman,  I  still  have  enough  of  the  woman  in  me  for  a 
rival  to  need  my  help  in  order  to  triumph  over  me  S  "  This 
cruel  speech,  uttered  with  an  air  of  perfect  innocence,  went 
to  the  Marquise's  heart.  "  You  must  think  me  a  very  idiotic 
person  if  you  believe  all  that  Calyste  tries  to  make  you  believe 


BEATRIX.  193 

about  me.  I  am  neither  lofty  nor  mean  ;  I  am  a  woman,  and 
very  much  a  woman.  Throw  off  your  airs  and  give  me  your 
hand,"  said  Camille,  taking  possession  of  Beatrix's  hand. 
"  You  do  not  love  Calyste,  that  is  the  truth — is  it  not?  Then 
do  not  get  in  a  rage  !  Be  stern  with  him  to-morrow,  cold  and 
hard,  and  he  will  end  by  submitting  after  the  scolding  I  shall 
give  him,  for  I  have  not  exhausted  the  resources  of  our  arsenal, 
and,  after  all,  pleasure  always  gets  the  better  of  desire. 

"  But  Calyste  is  a  Breton.  If  he  persists  in  paying  you  his 
addresses,  tell  me  honestly,  and  you  can  go  at  once  to  a 
little  country-house  of  mine  at  six  leagues  from  Paris,  where 
you  will  find  every  comfort,  and  where  Conti  can  join  you. 
If  Calyste  slanders  me  !  Why,  good  heavens  !  The  purest 
love  lies  six  times  a  day;  its  illusions  prove  its  strength." 

There  was  a  proud  coldness  in  Camille's  expression  that 
made  the  Marquise  uneasy  and  afraid.  She  did  not  know 
what  answer  to  make. 

Camille  struck  the  final  blow. 

"I  am  more  trusting  and  less  bitter  than  you,"  she  went 
on.  "I  do  not  imagine  that  you  intended  to  hide  under 
recrimination  an  attack  which  would  imperil  my  life ;  you 
know  me ;  I  should  not  survive  the  loss  of  Calyste,  and  I 
must  lose  him-  sooner  or  later.  But,  indeed,  Calyste  loves 
me,  and  I  know  it." 

"  Here  is  his  answer  to  a  letter  from  me  in  which  I  wrote 
only  of  you,"  said  Beatrix,  holding  out  Calyste's  letter. 

Camille  took  it  and  read  it.  As  she  read  her  eyes  filled 
with  tears ;  she  wept,  as  all  women  weep  in  acute  suffering. 

"  Good  God  !  "  said  she.  "  He  loves  her  !  Then  I  must 
die  without  ever  having  been  understood  or  loved  !  " 

She  sat  for  some  minutes  with  her  head  resting  on  her 
friend's  shoulder;  her  pain  was  genuine;  she  felt  in  her  own 
soul  the  same  terrible  blow  that  Madame  du  Guenic  had  re- 
ceived on  reading  this  letter. 

"  Do  you  love  him?"  said  she,  sitting  up  and  looking  at 
13^ 


194  BEATRIX. 

Beatrix.  "  Do  you  feel  for  him  that  infinite  devotion  which 
triumphs  over  all  suffering  and  survives  scorn,  betrayal,  even 
the  certainty  of  never  being  loved  again  ?  Do  you  love  him 
for  himself,  for  the  very  joy  of  loving?  " 

"My  dearest  friend!"  said  the  Marquise,  much  moved. 
"  Well,  be  content,  I  will  leave  to-morrow." 

"  Do  not  go  away ;  he  loves  you,  I  see  it !  And  I  love  him 
so  well  that  I  should  be  in  despair  if  I  saw  him  miserable  and 
unhappy.  I  had  dreamed  of  many  things  for  him ;  but  if  he 
loves  you,  that  is  all  at  an  end." 

"  Yes,  Cam i He,  I  love  him,"  said  the  Marquise  with  de- 
lightful simplicity,  but  coloring. 

"  You  love  him,  and  you  can  resist  him  !  "  cried  Camille. 
"  No,  you  do  not  love  him  !  " 

"I  do  not  know  what  new  virtues  he  has  aroused  in  me, 
but  he  has  certainly  made  me  ashamed  of  myself,"  said 
Beatrix.  "  I  could  wish  to  be  virtuous  and  free,  so  as  to 
have  something  else  to  sacrifice  to  him  beside  the  remnants 
of  a  heart  and  disgraceful  bonds.  I  will  not  accept  an  incom- 
plete destiny  either  for  him  or  for  myself." 

"  Cold  brain  !  it  can  love  and  calculate  !  "  cried  Camille, 
with  a  sort  of  horror. 

"  Whatever  you  please,  but  I  will  not  blight  his  life  or  be 
a  stone  round  his  neck,  an  everlasting  regret.  As  I  cannot 
be  his  wife,  I  will  not  be  his  mistress.  He  has — you  will  not 
laugh  at  me  ?  No  ?  Well,  then,  his  beautiful  love  has  puri- 
fied me." 

Camille  gave  Beatrix  a  look — the  wildest,  fiercest  look  that 
ever  a  jealous  woman  flung  at  her  rival. 

"  On  that  ground,"  said  she,  "  I  fancied  I  stood  alone. 
Beatrix,  that  speech  has  parted  us  for  ever ;  we  are  no  longer 
friends.  We  are  at  the  beginning  of  a  hideous  struggle. 
Now,  I  tell  you  plainly,  you  must  succumb  or  fly." 

Felicite  rushed  away  into  her  own  room  after  showing  to 
Beatrix,  who  was  amazed,  a  face  like  an  infuriated  lioness. 


BEATRIX.  195 

"  Are  you  coming  to  le  Croisic  to-morrow?  "  said  Camille, 
lifting  the  curtain. 

"  Certainly,"  said  the  Marquise  loftily;  "  I  will  not  fly — 
nor  will  I  succumb." 

"I  play  with  my  hand  on  the  table,"  retorted  Camille;  "I 
shall  write  to  Conti." 

Beatrix  turned  as  white  as  her  gauze  scarf. 

"For  each  of  us  life  is  at  stake,"  replied  Beatrix,  who  did 
not  know  what  to  decide  on. 

The  violent  passions  to  which  this  scene  had  given  rise  be- 
tween the  two  women  subsided  during  the  night.  They  both 
reasoned  with  themselves  and  came  back  to  a  reliance  on  the 
perfidious  temporizing  which  fascinates  most  women — an  ex- 
cellent system  between  them  and  men,  but  a  bad  one  between 
woman  and  woman.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  last  storm 
that  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  heard  the  great  voice  which 
dominates  even  the  bravest.  Beatrix  listened  to  the  counsels 
of  worldly  wisdom  ;  she  feared  the  contempt  of  society.  So 
Felicite's  last  master-stroke,  weighted  with  the  accents  of  in- 
tense jealousy,  was  perfectly  successful.  Calyste's  blunder 
was  remedied,  but  any  fresh  mistake  might  ruin  his  hopes  for- 
ever. 

The  month  of  August  was  drawing  to  a  close,  the  sky  was 
magnificently  clear.  On  the  horizon  the  ocean,  like  a  southern 
sea,  had  a  hue  as  of  molten  silver,  and  fluttered  to  the  strand 
in  sparkling  ripples.  A  sort  of  glistening  vapor,  produced 
by  the  sun's  rays  falling  directly  on  the  sand,  made  an  atmos- 
phere at  least  equal  to  that  of  the  tropics.  The  salt  blos- 
somed into  little  white  stars  on  the  surface  of  the  salt-pans. 
The  laborious  marshmen,  dressed  in  white  on  purpose  to  defy 
the  heat  of  the  sun,  were  at  their  post  by  daybreak  armed 
with  their  long  rakes,  some  leaning  against  the  mud-walls 
dividing  the  plots,  and  watching  this  process  of  natural  chem- 
istry, familiar  to  them  from  their  infancy;  others  playing  with 


196  BEATRIX. 

their  little  ones  and  wives.  Those  green  dragons  called  ex- 
cisemen smoked  their  pipes  in  peace.  There  was  something 
Oriental  in  the  picture,  and  certainly  a  Parisian,  suddenly 
dropped  there,  would  not  have  believed  that  he  was  in  France. 

The  Baron  and  Baroness,  who  had  made  a  pretext  of  their 
wish  to  see  how  the  salt-raking  was  going  on,  were  on  the 
jetty,  admiring  the  silent  scene,  where  no  sound  was  to  be 
heard  but  the  sea  moaning  with  regular  rhythm,  where  boats 
cut  through  the  water,  and  the  green  belt  of  cultivated  land 
was  all  the  more  lovely  in  its  effect  because  it  is  so  uncommon 
on  the  desert  shores  of  the  ocean. 

"  Well,  my  friends,  I  shall  have  seen  the  marshes  of  Guer- 
ande  once  more  before  I  die,"  said  the  Baron  to  the  marsh- 
men,  who  stood  in  groups  at  the  fringe  of  the  marsh  to  greet 
him. 

"  As  if  the  du  Guenics  died  !  "  said  one  of  the  men. 

At  this  moment  the  little  party  from  les  Touches  came 
down  the  narrow  road.  The  Marquise  led  the  way  alone, 
Calyste  and  Camille  followed  arm  in  arm.  About  twenty 
yards  behind  them  came  Gasselin. 

"  There  are  my  father  and  mother,"  said  Calyste  to  Camille. 

The  Marquise  stopped.  Madame  du  Guenic  felt  the  most 
vehement  repulsion  at  the  sight  of  Beatrix,  though  she  was 
dressed  to  advantage,  in  a  broad-brimmed  Leghorn  hat 
trimmed  with  blue  cornflowers,  her  hair  waved  beneath  it ;  a 
dress  of  gray  linen  stuff,  and  a  blue  sash  with  long  ends ;  in 
short,  the  garb  of  a  princess  disguised  as  a  shepherdess. 

"  She  has  no  heart  !  "  said  Fanny  to  herself. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  Calyste  to  Camille,  "here  are 
Madame  du  Guenic  and  my  father." 

Then  he  added  to  his  parents — 

"  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  and  Madame  la  Marquise  de 
Rochefide,  nee  de  Casteran — my  father." 

The  Baron  bowed  to  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  who  bowed 
with  an  air  of  humble  gratitude  to  the  Baroness, 


BE  A  TRIX.  197 

"She,"  thought  the  observant  Fanny,  "really  loves  my 
boy ;  she  seems  to  be  thanking  me  for  having  brought  him 
into  the  world." 

"  You,  like  me,  are  come  to  see  if  the  yield  is  good  ;  but 
you  have  more  reasons  than  I  for  curiosity,  mademoiselle," 
said  the  Baron  to  Camille,  "  for  you  have  property  here." 

"  Mademoiselle  is  the  richest  owner  of  them  all,"  said  one 
of  the  marshmen  ;  "  and  God  preserve  her,  for  she  is  a  very 
good  lady  !  " 

The  two  parties  bowed  and  went  their  way. 

"You  would  never  suppose  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  to 
be  more  than  thirty,"  said  the  good  man  to  his  wife.  "  She 
is  very  handsome.  And  Calyste  prefers  that  jade  of  a  Parisian 
Marquise  to  that  good  daughter  of  Brittany?" 

"Alas,  yes  !  "  said  the  Baroness. 

A  boat  was  lying  at  the  end  of  the  jetty  ;  they  got  in,  but 
not  in  high  spirits.  Beatrix  was  cold  and  dignified.  Camille 
had  scolded  Calyste  for  his  disobedience  and  explained  to 
him  the  position  of  his  love  affair.  Calyste,  sunk  in  gloomy 
despair,  cast  eyes  at  Beatrix,  in  which  love  and  hatred  strug- 
gled for  the  upper  hand. 

Not  a  word  was  spoken  during  the  short  passage  from  the 
jetty  of  Guerande  to  the  extreme  point  of  the  harbor  of  le 
Croisic,  the  spot  where  the  salt  is  shipped,  being  brought  down 
to  the  shore  by  women,  in  large  earthen  crocks,  which  they 
carry  on  their  heads,  holding  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  look 
like  caryatides.  These  women  are  barefoot  and  wear  a  very 
short  skirt.  Many  of  them  leave  the  kerchief  that  covers 
their  shoulders  to  fly  loose,  and  several  wear  only  a  shift,  and 
are  the  proudest,  for  the  less  clothes  they  wear  the  more  they 
display  their  modest  beauties. 

The  little  Danish  bark  was  taking  in  her  cargo.  Thus  the 
landing  of  these  two  beautiful  ladies  excited  the  curiosity  of 
the  salt-carriers  ;  and  partly  to  escape  them,  as  well  as  to  do 
Calyste  a  service,  Camille  hurried  on  toward  the  rocks,  leav- 


198  BEATRIX. 

ing  him  with  Beatrix.     Gasselin  lingered  at  least  two  hundred 
yards  behind  his  master. 

On  the  seaward  side  the  peninsula  of  le  Croisic  is  fringed 
with  granite  rocks  so  singularly  grotesque  in  form  that  they 
can  only  be  appreciated  by  travelers  who  are  able  from  ex- 
perience to  make  comparisons  between  the  different  grand 
spectacles  of  wild  nature.  The  rocks  of  le  Croisic  have,  per- 
haps, the  same  superiority  over  other  similar  scenes  that  the 
road  to  the  Grande  Chartreuse  is  admitted  to  have  over  other 
narrow  gorges.  Neither  the  Corsican  shore,  where  the  granite 
forms  very  remarkable  reefs,  nor  that  of  Sardinia,  where  nature 
has  reveled  in  grand  and  terrible  effects,  nor  the  basaltic 
formations  of  northern  seas,  have  quite  so  distinctive  a  char- 
acter. Fancy  seems  to  have  disported  itself  there  in  endless 
arabesques,  where  the  most  grotesque  shapes  mingle  or  stand 
forth.  Every  form  may  be  seen  there.  Imagination  may, 
perhaps,  be  weary  of  this  vast  collection  of  monsters,  among 
which,  in  furious  weather,  the  sea  rushes  in,  and  has  at  last 
polished  down  all  the  rough  edges. 

Under  a  natural  vault,  arched  with  a  boldness  only  faintly 
imitated  by  Brunelleschi — for  the  greatest  efforts  of  art  are 
but  a  timid  counterpart  of  some  work  of  nature — you  will 
find  a  basin  polished  like  a  marble  bath  and  strewn  with 
smooth,  fine  white  sand,  in  which  you  may  bathe  in  safety  in 
four  feet  of  tepid  water.  As  you  walk  on  you  admire  the  cool 
little  creeks,  under  shelter  of  porticoes  rough-hewn  but  stately, 
like  those  of  the  Pitti  palace — another  imitation  of  the  freaks 
of  nature.  The  variety  is  infinite  ;  nothing  is  lacking  that 
the  most  extravagant  fancy  could  invent  or  wish  for. 

There  is  even  a  large  shrub  of  box,*  a  thing  so  rare  on 
the  shore  of  the  Atlantic  that  perhaps  this  is  the  only  speci- 
men. This  box-shrub,  the  greatest  curiosity  in  le  Croisic, 
where  trees  cannot  grow,  is  at  about  a  league  from  the  port, 
on  the  utmost  headland  of  the  coast.     On  one  of  the  promon- 

*  Buis,  "whence  (says  Balzac)  the  word  buisson,"  shrub  or  bush. 


BE  A  TRIX.  199 

tories  formed  by  the  granite,  rising  so  high  above  the  sea  that 
the  waves  cannot  reach  it  even  in  the  wildest  storms,  and 
facing  the  south,  the  floods  have  worn  a  hollow  shelf  about 
four  feet  deep.  In  this  cleft,  chance,  or  perhaps  man,  has 
deposited  soil  enough  to  enable  a  box,  sown  by  some  bird,  to 
grow  thick  and  closely  shorn.  The  gnarled  roots  would  indi- 
cate an  age  of  at  least  three  hundred  years.  Below  it  the 
rock  falls  sheer. 

Some  shock,  of  which  the  traces  are  stamped  in  indelible 
characters  on  this  coast,  has  swept  off  the  fragments  of  granite 
I  know  not  whither.  The  sea  comes,  without  breaking  over 
any  shoals,  to  the  bottom  of  this  cliff,  where  the  water  is  more 
than  five  hundred  feet  deep.  On  either  hand  some  reefs,  just 
beneath  the  surface,  form  a  sort  of  large  cirque,  traceable  by 
the  foaming  breakers.  It  needs  some  courage  and  resolution 
to  climb  to  the  top  of  this  little  Gibraltar;  its  cap  is  almost 
spherical,  and  a  gust  of  wind  might  carry  the  inquirer  into 
the  sea,  or,  which  would  be  worse,  on  to  the  rocks  below. 
This  giant  sentinel  is  like  the  lantern  towers  of  old  chateaux, 
whence  miles  of  country  could  be  scanned  and  attacks  guarded 
against ;  from  its  height  are  seen  the  steeple  and  the  thrifty 
fields  of  le  Croisic,  the  sand-hills  that  threaten  to  encroach  on 
the  arable  land,  and  which  have  invaded  the  neighborhood 
of  le  Bourg  de  Batz.  Some  old  men  declare  that  there  was, 
long  ago,  a  castle  on  this  spot.  The  sardine  fishers  have  a 
name  for  this  headland,  which  can  be  seen  from  afar  at  sea; 
but  I  must  be  forgiven  for  having  forgotten  that  Breton  name, 
as  hard  to  pronounce  as  it  is  to  remember.   ■ 

Calyste  led  Beatrix  toward  this  height,  whence  the  view  is 
superb,  and  where  the  forms  of  the  granite  surpass  all  the  sur- 
prises they  can  have  caused  along  the  sandy  margin  of  the 
shore. 

It  is  vain  to  explain  why  Camille  had  hurried  on  in  front; 
like  a  wounded  animal,  she  longed  for  solitude ;  she  lost  her- 
self in  the  grottoes,  reappeared  on  the  boulders,  chased  the 


200  BEATRIX. 

crabs  out  of  their  holes  or  discovered  them  in  the  very  act  of 
their  eccentric  behavior.  Not  to  be  inconvenienced  by  her" 
woman's  skirts,  she  had  put  on  Turkish  trousers  with  embroid- 
ered frills,  a  short  blouse,  and  a  felt  hat ;  and,  by  way  of  a 
traveler's  staff,  she  carried  a  riding-whip,  for  she  was  always 
vain  of  her  strength  and  agility.  Thus  attired,  she  was  a 
hundred  times  handsomer  than  Beatrix ;  she  had  tied  a  little 
red,  China  silk  shawl  across  her  bosom  and  knotted  behind,  as 
we  wrap  a  child.  For  some  little  time  Beatrix  and  Calyste 
saw  her  flitting  over  rocks  and  rifts  like  a  will-o'-the-wisp, 
trying  to  stultify  grief  by  facing  perils. 

She  was  the  first  to  arrive  at  the  box-cliff,  and  sat  down  in 
the  shade  of  one  of  the  clefts,  lost  in  meditation.  What 
could  such  a  woman  as  she  do  in  old  age,  after  drinking  the 
cup  of  fame  which  all  great  talents,  too  greedy  to  sip  the  dull 
driblets  of  vanity,  drain  at  one  draught  ?  She  has  since  con- 
fessed that  then  and  there,  one  of  the  coincidences  suggested 
by  a  mere  trifle,  by  one  of  the  accidents  which  count  for 
nothing  with  ordinary  people,  though  they  open  a  gulf  of 
meditation  to  a  great  soul,  brought  her  to  a  decision  as  to  the 
strange  deed,  which  was  afterward  the  close  of  her  social 
career.  She  drew  out  of  her  pocket  a  little  box  in  which  she 
had  brought,  in  case  of  thirst,  some  strawberry  pastilles;  she 
ate  several ;  but  as  she  sucked  them,  she  could  not  help  re- 
flecting that  the  strawberries,  which  were  no  more,  yet  lived 
by  their  qualities.  Hence  she  concluded  that  it  might  be  the 
same  with  us.  The  sea  offered  her  an  image  of  the  infinite. 
No  great  mind  can  get  away  from  the  infinite,  granting  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  without  being  brought  to  infer  some 
religious  future.  This  idea  still  haunted  her  when  she  smelt 
at  her  scent-bottle  of  Eau  de  Portugal. 

Her  manoeuvres  for  handing  Beatrix  over  to  Calyste  then 
struck  her  as  very  sordid  ;  she  felt  the  woman  die  in  her,  and 
she  emerged  as  the  noble  angelic  being  hitherto  veiled  in  the 
flesh.     Her  vast  intellect,  her  learning,  her  acquirements,  her 


BE  A  TRIX.  201 

spurious  loves  had  brought  her  face  to  face  with  what  ?  Who 
could  have  foretold  it?  With  the  yearning  mother,  the  con- 
soler of  the  sorrowing — the  Roman  Church — so  mild  toward 
repentance,  so  poetical  to  poets,  so  artless  with  children,  so 
deep  and  mysterious  to  wild  and  anxious  spirits,  that  they  can 
for  ever  plunge  deeper  into  it  and  still  satisfy  their  inextin- 
guishable curiosity  which  is  constantly  excited. 

She  glanced  back  at  the  devious  ways  to  which  she  had 
been  led  by  Calyste,  comparing  them  to  the  tortuous  paths 
among  these  rocks.  Calyste  was  still  in  her  eyes  the  lovely 
messenger  from  heaven,  a  divine  leader.  She  smothered 
earthly  in  sacred  love. 

After  walking  on  for  some  time  in  silence,  Calyste,  at  an 
exclamation  from  Beatrix  at  the  beauty  of  the  ocean,  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  Mediterranean,  could  not  resist  drawing  a 
comparison  between  that  sea  and  his  love,  in  its  purity  and 
extent,  its  agitations,  its  depth,  its  eternity. 

"It  has  a  rock  for  its  shore,"  said  Beatrix  with  a  little 
mocking  laugh. 

"When  you  speak  to  me  in  that  tone,"  replied  he  with  a 
heavenly  flash,  "I  see  you  and  hear  you,  and  I  can  find  an 
angel's  patience  ;  but  when  I  am  alone,  you  would  pity  me  if 
you  could  see  me.     My  mother  cries  over  my  grief." 

"  Listen,  Calyste,  this  must  come  to  an  end,"  said  the  Mar- 
quise, stepping  down  on  to  the  sandy  path.  "  Perhaps  we  are 
now  in  the  one  propitious  spot  for  the  utterance  of  such  things, 
for  never  in  my  life  have  I  seen  one  where  nature  was  more  in 
harmony  with  my  thoughts.  I  have  seen  Italy,  where  every- 
thing speaks  of  love  ;  I  have  seen  Switzerland,  where  all  is  fresh 
and  expressive  of  true  happiness,  laborious  happiness,  where  the 
verdure,  the  calm  waters,  the  most  placid  outlines  are  over- 
powered by  the  snow-crowned  Alps;  but  I  have  seen  nothing 
which  more  truly  paints  the  scorching  barrenness  of  my  life 
than  this  little  plain,  withered  by  sea-gales,  corroded  by  salt 
mists,  where  melancholy  tillage  struggles  in  the  face  of  the  im- 


202  BEATRIX. 

mense  ocean  and  under  the  hedgerows  of  Brittany,  whence 
rise  the  towers  of  your  Guerande. 

"  Well,  Calyste,  that  is  Beatrix.  Do  not  attach  yourself  to 
that.  I  love  you,  but  I  will  never  be  yours,  for  I  am  con- 
scious of  my  inward  desolation.  Ah  !  you  can  never  know 
how  cruel  I  am  to  myself  when  I  tell  you  this.  No,  you  shall 
never  see  your  idol — if  I  am  your  idol — stoop  ;  it  shall  not 
fall  from  the  height  where  you  have  set  it.  I  have  now  a 
horror  of  a  passion  which  the  world  and  religion  alike  repro- 
bate;  I  will  be  humbled  no  more,  nor  will  I  steal  happiness. 
I  shall  remain  where  I  am  ;  I  shall  be  the  sandy,  unfertile 
desert,  without  verdure  or  flowers,  which  lies  before  you." 

"And. if  you  should  be  deserted?"  said  Calyste. 

"  Then  I  should  go  and  beg  for  mercy.  I  would  humble 
myself  before  the  "man  I  have  sinned  against,  but  I  would 
never  run  the  risk  of  rushing  into  happiness  which  I  know 
would  end." 

''End?"  cried  Calyste. 

"  End,"  repeated  the  Marquise,  interrupting  the  rhapsody 
into  which  her  lover  was  plunging,  by  a  tone  which  reduced 
him  to  silence. 

This  contradiction  gave  rise  in  the  youth's  soul  to  one  of 
those  wordless  rages  which  are  known  only  to  those  who  have 
loved  without  hope.  He  and  Beatrix  walked  on  for  about 
three  hundred  yards  in  utter  silence,  looking  neither  at  the 
sea,  nor  the  rocks,  nor  the  fields  of  le  Croisic. 

"  I  should  make  you  so  happy  !  "  said  Calyste. 

"All  men  begin  by  promising  us  happiness,  and  they  be- 
queath to  us  shame,  desertion,  disgust.  I  have  nothing  of 
which  to  accuse  the  man  to  whom  I  ought  to  be  faithful ;  he 
made  me  no  promises  ;  I  went  to  him.  But  the  only  way  to 
make  my  fault  less  is  to  make  it  eternal." 

"  Say  at  once,  madame,  that  you  do  not  love  me  !  I  who 
love  you,  know  by  myself  that  love  does  not  argue,  it  sees 
nothing  but  itself,  there  is  no  sacrifice  I  could  not  make  for 


BE  A  TR1X.  203 

it.  Command  me,  and  I  will  attempt  the  impossible.  The 
man  who  of  old  scorned  his  mistress  for  having  thrown  her 
glove  to  the  lions  and  commanded  him  to  rescue  it  did  not 
love  !  He  misprized  your  right  to  test  us,  to  make  sure  of 
our  love,  and  never  to  lay  down  your  arms  but  to  superhuman 
magnanimity.  To  you  I  would  sacrifice  my  family?  my  name, 
my  future  life." 

"  What  an  insult  lies  in  that  word  sacrifice  !  "  replied  she 
in  a  reproachful  tone,  which  made  Calyste  feel  all  the  folly  of 
his  expression. 

Only  women  who  loved  wholly,  or  utter  coquettes,  can  take 
a  word  as  a  fulcrum,  and  spring  to  prodigious  heights  ;  wit 
and  feeling  act  on  the  same  lines ;  but  the  woman  who  loves 
is  grieved,  the  coquette  is  contemptuous. 

"You  are  right,"  said  Calyste,  dropping  two  tears,  "the 
word  can  only  be  applied  to  the  achievement  you  demand 
of  me." 

"Be  silent,"  said  Beatrix,  startled  by  a  reply  in  which  for 
the  first  time  Calyste  really  expressed  his  love.  "  I  have  done 
wrong  enough.     Do  not  tempt  me." 

They  had  just  reached  the  base  of  the  box-cliff.  Calyste  felt 
intoxicating  joys  in  helping  the  Marquise  to  climb  the  rock; 
she  was  bent  on  mounting  to  the  very  top.  The  poor  boy 
thought  it  the  height  of  rapture  to  support  her  by  the  waist, 
to  feel  her  slightly  tremulous :  she  needed  him  !  The  un- 
hoped-for joy  turned  his  brain,  he  saw  nothing,  he  put  his 
arm  around  her  body. 

"  Well !  "  she  said  with  an  imperious  look. 

"  You  will  never  be  mine?  "  he  asked  in  a  voice  choked 
by  a  storm  in  his  blood. 

"Never,  my  dear,"  said  she.  "To  you  I  can  only  be 
Beatrix — a  dream.  And  is  not  a  dream  sweet  ?  We  shall 
know  no  bitterness,  no  regrets,  no  repentance." 

"And  you  will  return  to  Conti?  " 

"There  is  no  help  for  it." 


204  BEATRIX. 

"Then  you  shall  never  more  be  any  man's,"  cried  Ca- 
lyste,  flinging  her  from  him  with  mad  violence. 

He  listened  for  her  fall  before  throwing  himself  after  her, 
but  he  only  heard  a  dull  noise,  the  harsh  rending  of  stuff,  and 
the  heavy  sound  of  a  body  falling  on  earth.  Instead  of  tum- 
bling head  foremost,  Beatrix  had  turned  over ;  she  had  fallen 
into  the  box-tree ;  but  she  would  have  rolled  to  the  bottom 
of  the  sea,  nevertheless,  if  her  gown  had  not  caught  on  a 
corner,  and,  by  tearing,  checked  the  force  of  her  fall  on  the 
bush. 

Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  who  had  witnessed  the  scene, 
could  not  call  out,  for  she  was  aghast,  and  could  only  signal 
to  Gasselin  to  hasten  up.  Calyste  leaned  over,  prompted  by 
a  fierce  sort  of  curiosity  ;  he  saw  Beatrix  as  she  lay,  and  shud- 
dered. She  seemed  to  be  praying  ;  she  thought  she  must  die, 
she  felt  the  box-tree  giving  way.  With  the  sudden  presence 
of  mind  inspired  by  love,  and  the  supernatural  agility  of 
youth  in  the  face  of  danger,  he  let  himself  down  the  nine 
feet  of  rock  by  his  hands,  clinging  to  the  rough  edges,  to  the 
little  shelf,  where  he  was  in  time  to  rescue  the  Marquise  by 
taking  her  in  his  arms,  at  the  risk  of  their  both  falling  into 
the  sea.  When  he  caught  Beatrix  she  became  unconscious ; 
but  he  could  dream  that  she  was  his,  wholly  his,  in  this  aerial 
bed  where  they  might  have  to  remain  a  long  time,  and  his 
first  feeling  was  an  impulse  of  gladness. 

"Open  your  eyes,  forgive  me!"  said  Calyste.  "Or  we 
die  together." 

"Die?"  said  she,  opening  her  eyes  and  unsealing  her 
pale  lips. 

Calyste  received  the  word  with  a  kiss,  and  then  was  aware 
of  a  spasmodic  thrill  in  the  Marquise,  which  was  ecstasy  to 
him.  At  that  instant  Gasselin's  nailed  shoes  were  audible 
above  them.  Camille  followed  the  Breton,  and  they  were 
anxiously  considering  the  means  of  saving  the  lovers. 

"There   is   but   one  way,   mademoiselle,"   said   Grasselin, 


'OPEN     YOUR    EYES,    FORGIVE    ME'"    SAID     CALYSTE.    "  OR    WE 

DIE    TOGETHER." 


BEATRIX.  205 

"  I  will  let  myself  down  ;  they  will  climb  up  on  my  shoulders, 
and  you  will  give  them  your  hand." 

"And  you?"  said  Camille. 

The  man  seemed  astonished  at  being  held  of  any  account 
when  his  young  master  was  in  danger. 

"It  will  be  better  to  fetch  a  ladder  from  le  Croisic,"  said 
Camille. 

"  She  is  a  knowing  one,  she  is  !  "  said  Gasselin  to  himself, 
as  he  went  off. 

Beatrix,  in  a  feeble  voice,  begged  to  be  laid  on  the  ground ; 
she  felt  faint.  Calyste  laid  her  down  on  the  cool  earth  be- 
tween the  rock  and  the  box-tree. 

"I  saw  you,  Calyste,"  said  Camille.  "Whether  Beatrix 
dies  or  is  saved,  this  must  never  be  anything  but  an  accident." 

"  She  will  hate  me  !  "  he  cried,  his  eyes  full  of  tears. 

"  She  will  worship  you,"  replied  Camille.  "  This  is  an  end 
to  our  excursion  ;  she  must  be  carried  to  les  Touches.  What 
would  have  become  of  you  if  she  had  been  killed  ?  "  she  said. 

"I  should  have  followed  her." 

"And  your  mother? — and,"  she  softly  added  after  a  pause, 
"and  me?" 

Calyste  stood  pale,  motionless,  and  silent,  his  back  against 
the  granite.  Gasselin  very  soon  returned  from  one  of  the 
little  farms  that  lie  scattered  among  the  fields,  running  with 
a  ladder  he  had  borrowed.  Beatrix  had  somewhat  recovered 
her  strength.  When  Gasselin  had  fixed  the  ladder,  the 
Marquise,  helped  by  Gasselin,  who  begged  Calyste  to  put 
Camille's  red  shawl  round  Beatrix,  under  her  arms,  and  to 
give  him  up  the  ends,  climbed  up  to  the  little  plateau,  where 
Gasselin  took  her  in  his  arms  like  a  child,  and  carried  her 
down  to  the  shore. 

"  Death  I  would  not  say  nay  to — but  pain  !  "  said  she  in  a 
weak  voice  to  Mademoiselle  des  Touches. 

The  faintness  and  shock  from  which  Beatrix  was  suffering 
made  it  necessary  that  she  should  be  carried  as  far  as  the  farm 

U 


206  BEATRIX. 

whence  Gasselin  had  borrowed  the  ladder.  Calyste,  Gasselin, 
and  Camille  took  off  such  garments  as  they  could  dispense 
with,  and  made  a  sort  of  mattress  on  the  ladder,  on  which 
they  laid  Beatrix,  carrying  it  like  a  litter.  The  farm-people 
offered  their  bed.  Gasselin  hurried  off  to  the  spot  where  the 
horses  were  waiting  for  them,  took  one,  and  fetched  a  surgeon 
from  le  Croisic,  after  ordering  the  boatmen  to  come  up  the 
creek  that  lay  nearest  to  the  farm.  Calyste,  sitting  on  a  low 
stool,  answered  Camille's  remarks  with  nods  and  rare  mono- 
syllables, and  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  was  equally  uneasy 
as  to  Beatrix's  condition  and  Calyste's. 

After  being  bled  the  patient  felt  better;  she  could  speak; 
she  consented  to  go  in  the  boat ;  and  at  about  five  in  the 
afternoon  they  crossed  to  Guerande,  where  the  town  doctor 
was  waiting  for  her.  The  news  of  the  accident  had  spread 
in  this  deserted  and  almost  uninhabited  land  with  amazing 
rapidity. 

Calyste  spent  the  night  at  les  Touches  at  the  foot  of  Beatrix's 
bed  with  Camille.  The  doctor  promised  that  by  next  morn- 
ing the  Marquise  would  suffer  from  nothing  worse  than  stiff- 
ness. Through  Calyste's  despair  a  great  happiness  beamed. 
He  was  at  the  foot  of  Beatrix's  bed  watching  her  asleep  or 
waking  ;  he  could  study  her  pale  face,  her  lightest  movements. 
Camille  smiled  bitterly  as  she  recognized  in  the  lad  all  the 
symptoms  of  a  passion  such  as  tinges  the  soul  and  mind  of  a 
man  by  becoming  a  part  of  his  life  at  a  time  when  no  thought, 
no  cares  counteract  this  torturing  mental  process. 

Calyste  would  never  discern  the  real  woman  in  Beatrix. 
How  guilelessly  did  the  young  Breton  allow  her  to  read  his 
most  secret  soul  !  Why,  he  fancied  she  was  his,  merely  be- 
cause he  found  himself  here,  in  her  room,  admiring  her  in  the 
disorder  of  the  bed.  He  watched  Beatrix  in  her  slightest 
movement  with  rapturous  attention  ;  his  face  expressed  such 
sweet  curiosity,   his  ecstasy  was  so  artlessly  betrayed,   that 


BEATRIX.  207 

there  was  a  moment  when  the  two  women  looked  at  each 
other  with  a  smile.  As  Calyste  read  in  the  invalid's  fine  sea- 
green  eyes  a  mixed  expression  of  confusion,  love,  and  amuse- 
ment, he  blushed  and  looked  away. 

"  Did  I  not  say  to  you,  Calyste,  that  you  men  promised  us 
happiness  and  ended  by  throwing  us  over  a  precipice?" 

As  he  heard  this  little  jest,  spoken  in  a  charming  tone  of 
voice,  which  betrayed  some  change  in  Beatrix's  heart,  Calyste 
knelt  down,  took  one  of  her  moist  hands,  which  she  allowed 
him  to  hold,  and  kissed  it  very  submissively. 

"  You  have  every  right  to  reject  my  love  for  ever,"  said  he, 
penitently,  "and  I  have  no  right  ever  to  say  a  single  word  to 
you  again." 

"Ah!  "  cried  Camille,  as  she  saw  the  expression  of  her 
friend's  face,  and  compared  it  with  that  she  had  seen  after 
every  effort  of  diplomacy;  "love  unaided  will  always  have 
more  wit  than  all  the  world  beside.  Take  your  draught,  my 
dear,  and  go  to  sleep." 

This  evening  spent  by  Calyste  with  Mademoiselle  des 
Touches,  who  read  books  on  mystical  theology,  while  Calyste 
read  "Indiana  " — the  first  work  of  Camille's  famous  rival,  in 
which  he  found  the  captivating  picture  of  a  young  man  who 
loved  with  idolatry  and  devotion,  with  mysterious  rapture, 
and  for  his  whole  life — a  book  of  fatal  teaching  for  him  !  this 
evening  left  an  ineffaceable  mark  on  the  heart  of  the  unhappy 
youth,  for  Felicite  at  last  convinced  him  that  any  woman  who 
was  not  a  monster  could  only  be  happy  and  flattered  in  every 
vanity,  by  knowing  herself  to  be  the  object  of  a  crime. 

"You  would  never,  never,  have  thrown  me  into  the  sea  !  " 
said  poor  Camille  wiping  away  a  tear. 

Toward  morning  Calyste,  quite  worn  out,  fell  asleep  in  his 
chair.  It  was  now  the  Marquise's  turn  to  look  at  the  pretty 
boy,  pale  with  agitation  and  his  first  love-watch  ;  she  heard 
him  murmuring  words  in  his  sleep. 

"  He  loves  in  his  very  dreams  !  "  said  she  to  Camille. 


208  BE  A  TRIX. 

"  We  must  send  him  home  to  bed,"  said  F6licit6,  awaking 
him. 

No  one  was  alarmed  at  the  du  Guenics' ;  Mademoiselle  des 
Touches  had  written  a  few  words  to  the  Baroness. 

Calyste  dined  at  les  Touches  next  day.  He  found  Beatrix 
up,  pale,  languid,  and  tired.  But  there  was  no  hardness  now 
in  her  speech  or  looks.  After  that  evening,  which  Camille 
filled  with  music,  seating  herself  at  the  piano  to  allow  Calyste 
to  hold  and  press  Beatrix's  hands  while  they  could  say  nothing 
to  each  other,  there  was  never  a  storm  at  les  Touches.  Felicite 
completely  effaced  herself. 

Women  like  Madame  de  Rochefide,  cold,  fragile,  hard,  and 
thin — such  women,  whose  throat  shows  a  form  of  collar-bone 
suggestive  of  the  feline  race — have  souls  as  pale  and  colorless 
as  their  pale  gray  or  green  eyes ;  to  melt  them,  to  vitrify  these 
flints,  a  thunderbolt  is  needed.  To  Beatrix  this  thunderbolt 
had  fallen  in  Calyste's  rage  of  love  and  attempt  on  her  life ; 
it  was  such  a  flame  as  nothing  can  resist,  changing  the  most 
stubborn  nature.  Beatrix  felt  herself  softened  ;  pure  and  true 
love  flooded  her  soul  with  its  soothing,  lapping  glow.  She 
floated  in  a  mild  and  tender  atmosphere  of  feeling  hitherto 
unknown,  in  which  she  felt  ennobled,  elevated ;  she  had  en- 
tered into  the  heaven  where,  in  all  ages,  woman  has  dwelt,  in 
Brittany.  She  enjoyed  the  respectful  worship  of  this  boy, 
whose  happiness  cost  her  so  little;  for  a  smile,  a  look,  a  word 
was  enough  for  Calyste.  Such  value  "set  by  feeling  on  such 
trifles  touched  her  extremely.  To  this  angelic  soul,  the  glove 
she  had  worn  could  be  more  than  her  whole  body  was  to  the 
man  who  ought  to  have  adored  her.     What  a  contrast ! 

What  woman  could  have  resisted  this  persistent  idolatry? 
She  was  sure  of  being  understood  and  obeyed.  If  she  had 
bid  Calyste  to  risk  his  life  for  her  smallest  whim,  he  would 
not  even  have  paused  to  think.  And  Beatrix  acquired  an  in- 
describable air  of  imposing  dignity;  she  looked  at  love  on  its 
loftiest  side,  and  sought  in  it  a  footing,  as  it  were,   which 


BEATRIX.  209 

would  enable  her  to  remain,  in  Calyste's  eyes,  the  supreme 
woman;  she  wished  her  power  over  him  to  be  eternal.  She 
coquetted  all  the  more  persistently  because  she  felt  herself 
weak. 

For  a  whole  week  she  played  the  invalid  with  engaging 
hypocrisy.  How  many  times  did  she  walk  around  and  around 
the  green  lawn  that  spread  on  the  garden  side  of  the  house, 
leaning  on  Calyste's  arm,  and  reviving  in  Camille  the  tor- 
ments she  had  caused  her  during  the  first  week  of  her  visit. 

"Well,  my  dear,  you  are  taking  him  the  Grand  Tour!" 
said  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  to  the  Marquise. 

One  evening,  before  the  excursion  to  le  Croisic,  the  two 
women  had  been  discussing  love,  and  laughing  over  the 
various  ways  in  which  men  made  their  declarations,  confessing 
that  the  most  skillful,  and,  of  course,  therefore  the  least  de- 
voted, did  not  waste  time  in  wandering  through  the  mazes  of 
sentimentality,  and  were  right ;  so  that  those  who  loved  best 
were,  at  a  certain  stage,  the  worst  used. 

"They  set  to  work  as  La  Fontaine  did  to  get  into  the 
Academy,"  said  Camille. 

Her  remark  now  recalled  this  conversation  to  Beatrix's 
memory  while  reproving  her  Machiavellian  conduct.  Madame 
de  Rochefide  had  absolute  power  over  Calyste,  and  could 
keep  him  within  the  bounds  she  chose,  reminding  him  by  a 
look  or  a  gesture  of  his  horrible  violence  by  the  seashore. 
Then  the  poor  martyr's  eyes  would  fill  with  tears ;  he  was 
silent,  swallowing  down  his  arguments,  his  hopes,  his  griefs, 
with  a  heroism  that  would  have  touched  any  other  woman. 

Her  infernal  coquetting  brought  him  to  such  desperation 
that  he  came  one  day  to  throw  himself  into  Camille's  arms 
and  ask  her  advice.  Beatrix,  armed  with  Calyste's  letter,  had 
picked  out  the  passage  in  which  he  said  that  loving  was  the 
chief  happiness,  that  being  loved  was  second  to  it,  and  she 
had  made  use  of  this  axiom  to  suppress  his  passion  to  such  a 
degree  of  respectful  idolatry  as  she  chose  to  permit.  She 
14 


210  BEATRIX. 

reveled  in  having  her  spirit  soothed  by  the  sweet  concert  of 
praise  and  adoration  which  nature  suggests  to  youth  ;  and 
there  is  so  much  art  too,  though  unconscious,  so  much  inno- 
cent seductiveness  in  their  cries,  their  prayers,  their  exclama- 
tions, their  appeals  to  themselves,  in  their  readiness  to  mort- 
gage the  future,  that  Beatrix  took  care  not  to  answer  him. 
She  had  told  him  she  doubted  !  Happiness  was  not  yet  in 
question,  only  the  permission  to  love  that  the  lad  was  con- 
stantly asking  for,  persistently  bent  on  taking  the  citadel 
from  the  strongest  side — that  of  the  mind  and  heart. 

The  woman  who  is  bravest  in  word  is  often  weak  in  action. 
After  seeing  what  progress  he  had  made  by  his  attempt  to 
push  Beatrix  into  the  sea,  it  is  strange  that  Calyste  should 
not  have  continued  the  pursuit  of  happiness  through  violence  ; 
but  love  in  these  young  lads  is  so  ecstatic  and  religious  that  it 
insists  on  absolute  conviction.     Hence  its  sublimity. 

However,  one  day  Calyste,  driven  to  bay  by  desire,  com- 
plained vehemently  to  Camille  of  Madame  de  Rochefide's 
conduct. 

"  I  wanted  to  cure  you  by  enabling  you  to  know  her  from 
the  first,"  replied  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  "but  you  spoilt 
all  by  your  impetuosity.  Ten  days  since  you  were  her  master  ; 
now  you  are  her  slave,  my  poor  boy.  So  you  would  never  be 
strong  enough  to  carry  out  my  orders." 

"What  must  I  do?" 

"Quarrel  with  her  on  the  ground  of  her  cruelty.  A 
woman  is  always  carried  away  by  talk ;  make  her  treat  you 
badly,  and  do  not  return  to  les  Touches  till  she  sends  for 
you." 

There  is  a  moment  in  every  severe  disease  when  the  patient 
accepts  the  most  painful  remedies  and  submits  to  the  most 
horrible  operations.  Calyste  was  at  this  crisis.  He  took 
Camille's  advice  :  he  stayed  at  home  for  two  days ;  but  on 
the  third  he  was  tapping  at  Beatrix's  door  and  telling  her  that 
he  and  Camille  were  waiting  breakfast  for  her. 


BEATRIX.  211 

"Another  chance  lost!"  said  Camille,  seeing  him  sneak 
back  so  tamely. 

During  those  two  days  Beatrix  had  stopped  frequently  at 
the  window  whence  the  Guerande  road  could  be  seen.  When 
Camille  found  her  there  she  said  that  she  was  studying  the 
effect  of  the  gorse  by  the  roadside,  its  golden  bloom  blazing 
under  the  September  sun.  Thus  Camille  had  read  her 
friend's  secret ;  she  had  only  to  say  the  word  for  Calyste  to 
be  happy.  But  she  did  not  speak  it ;  she  was  still  too  much 
a  woman  to  urge  him  to  the  deed  so  dreaded  by  young 
hearts,  who  seem  aware  of  all  that  their  ideal  must  lose  by  it. 

Beatrix  kept  Camille  and  Calyste  waiting  some  little  time ; 
if  he  had  been  any  other  man,  the  delay  would  have  seemed 
significant,  for  the  Marquise's  dress  suggested  her  wish  to 
fascinate  Calyste  and  prevent  his  absenting  himself  again. 
After  breakfast  she  went  to  walk  in  the  garden,  and  en- 
chanted him  with  joy,  as  she  enchanted  him  with  love,  by 
expressing  her  wish  to  go  with  him  again  to  see  the  spot 
where  she  had  so  nearly  perished. 

"  Let  us  go  alone,"  said  Calyste  in  a  broken  voice. 

"If  I  refused,"  said  she,  "I  might  give  you  reason  to 
think  that  you  were  dangerous.  Alas  !  as  I  have  told  you  a 
thousand  times,  I  belong  to  another,  and  must  forever  be  his 
alone.  I  chose  him,  knowing  nothing  of  love.  The  fault 
was  twofold,  and  the  punishment  double." 

When  she  spoke  thus,  her  eyes  moist  with  the  rare  tears 
such  women  can  shed,  Calyste  felt  a  sort  of  pity  that  cooled 
his  furious  ardor ;  he  worshiped  her  then  as  a  Madonna. 
We  must  not  expect  that  different  natures  should  resemble 
each  other  in  the  expression  of  their  feelings,  any  more  than 
we  look  for  the  same  fruits  from  different  trees.  Beatrix  at 
this  moment  was  torn  in  her  mind ;  she  hesitated  between 
herself  and  Calyste  ;  between  the  world,  where  she  hoped 
some  day  to  be  seen  again,  and  perfect  happiness ;  between 
ruining  herself  finally  by  a  second  unpardonable  passion  and 


212  BE  A  TRIX. 

social  forgiveness.  She  was  beginning  to  listen  without  even 
affected  annoyance  to  the  language  of  blind  love ;  she  allowed 
herself  to  be  soothed  by  the  gentle  hands  of  pity.  Already 
many  times,  she  had  been  moved  to  tears  by  hearing  Calyste 
promising  her  love  enough  to  make  up  for  all  she  could  lose 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and  pitying  her  for  being  bound  to 
such  an  evil  genius,  to  a  man  so  false  as  Conti.  More  than 
once  she  had  not  silenced  Calyste  when  she  had  told  him  of 
the  misery  and  sufferings  that  overwhelmed  her  in  Italy  when 
she  found  that  she  did  not  reign  alone  in  Conti's  heart. 
Camille  had  given  Calyste  more  than  one  lecture  on  this 
subject,  and  Calyste  had  profited  by  them. 

"I,"  said  he,  "love  you  wholly;  you  will  find  in  me 
none  of  the  triumphs  of  art,  nor  the  pleasures  derived  from 
seeing  a  crowd  bewildered  by  the  wonders  of  talent ;  my 
only  talent  is  for  loving  you,  my  only  joys  will  be  in  yours; 
no  woman's  admiration  will  seem  to  me  worthy  of  considera- 
tion ;  you  need  fear  no  odious  rivals.  You  are  misprized  ; 
and  wherever  you  are  accepted  I  desire  also  to  be  accepted 
every  day." 

She  listened  to  his  words  with  a  drooping  head  and  down- 
cast mien,  allowing  him  to  kiss  her  hands,  and  confessing  to 
herself  silently  but  very  readily  that  she  was,  perhaps,  a  misun- 
derstood angel. 

"I  am  too  much  humiliated,"  she  replied;  "my  past  de- 
prives me  of  all  security  for  the  future." 

It  was  a  great  day  for  Calyste  when,  on  reaching  les 
Touches  at  seven  in  the  morning,  he  saw  from  between  two 
gorse  bushes  Beatrix  at  a  window,  wearing  the  same  straw  hat 
that  she  had  worn  on  the  day  of  their  excursion.  He  felt 
quite  dazzled.  These  small  details  of  passion  make  the  world 
wider. 

Only  Frenchwomen,  perhaps,  have  the  secret  of  these  the- 
atrical touches ;  they  owe  them  to  their  graceful  wit,  of  which 


BE  A  TRIX.  213 

they  infuse  just  so  much  into  feeling  as  it  can  bear  without 
losing  its  force. 

Ah  !  how  lightly  she  leaned  on  Calyste's  arm.  They  went 
out  together  by  the  garden  gate  leading  to  the  sand-hills.  Bea- 
trix thought  their  wildness  pleasing  ;  she  saw  the  little  rigid 
plants  that  grow  there  with  their  pink  blossoms,  and  gathered 
several,  with  some  of  the  Carthusian  pinks,  which  also  thrive 
on  barren,  sands,  and  divided  the  flowers  significantly  with 
Calyste,  to  whom  these  blossoms  and  leaves  were  to  have  an 
eternally  sinister  association. 

"We  will  add  a  sprig  of  box  !  "  said  she  with  a  smile. 

She  stood  for  some  time  waiting  for  the  boat  on  the  jetty, 
where  Calyste  told  her  of  his  childish  eagerness  the  day  of  her 
arrival. 

"That  expedition,  which  I  heard  of,  was  the  cause  of  my 
severity  that  first  day,"  said  she. 

Throughout  their  walk  Madame  de  Rochefide  talked  in  the 
half-jesting  tone  of  a  woman  who  loves,  and  with  tenderness 
and  freedom  of  manner.  Calyste  might  believe  himself  loved. 
But  when,  as  they  went  along  the  strand  under  the  rocks,  and 
down  into  one  of  those  pretty  bays  where  the  waves  have 
thrown  up  a  marvelous  mosaic  of  the  strangest  marbles,  with 
which  they  played  like  children  at  picking  up  the  finest  speci- 
mens— when  Calyste,  at  the  height  of  intoxication,  proposed 
in  so  many  words  that  they  should  fly  to  Ireland,  she  assumed 
a  dignified  and  mysterious  air,  begged  to  take  his  arm,  and 
went  on  toward  the  cliff  she  had  called  her  Tarpeian  rock. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  she,  as  they  slowly  climbed  the  fine 
block  of  granite  she  meant  to  take  as  her  pedestal,  "  I  have 
not  courage  enough  to  conceal  all  you  are  to  me.  For  the 
last  ten  years  I  have  known  no  happiness  to  compare  with  that 
we  have  just  enjoyed  in  hunting  for  shells  among  those  tide- 
washed  rocks,  in  exchanging  pebbles,  of  which  I  shall  have  a 
necklace  made,  more  precious  in  my  eyes  than  if  it  were  com- 
posed of  the  finest  diamonds.     I  have  been  a  child  again,  a 


214  BE  A  TRIX. 

little  girl,  such  as  I  was  at  thirteen  or  fourteen,  when  I  was 
worthy  of  you.  The  love  I  have  been  so  happy  as  to  inspire 
you  with  has  elevated  me  in  my  own  eyes.  Understand  this 
in  all  its  magical  meaning.  You  have  made  me  the  proudest, 
the  happiest  of  my  sex,  and  you  will  live  longer  in  my  memory 
than  I  probably  shall  in  yours." 

At  this  moment  she  had  reached  the  summit  of  the  cliff, 
whence  the  vast  ocean  was  seen  spreading  on  one  side,  and  on 
the  other  the  Brittany  coast  with  its  golden  islets,  its  feudal 
towers,  and  its  clumps  of  gorse.  Never  had  a  woman  a  finer 
stage  on  which  to  make  a  grand  avowal. 

"  But,"  she  went  on,  "  I  am  not  my  own  ;  I  am  more  firmly 
bound  by  my  own  act  than  I  was  by  law.  So  you  are  pun- 
ished for  my  misfortune ;  you  must  be  content  to  know  that 
we  suffer  together.  Dante  never  saw  Beatrice  again,  Petrarch 
never  possessed  his  Laura.  Such  disasters  befall  none  but 
great  souls. 

"  Oh  !  if  ever  I  should  be  deserted,  if  I  should  fall  a  thou- 
sand degrees  lower  in  shame  and  infamy,  if  your  Beatrix  is 
cruelly  misunderstood  by  a  world  that  will  be  loathsome  to 
her,  if  she  should  be  the  most  despised  of  women  !  Then,  be- 
loved child,"  she  added,  taking  his  hand,  "you  will  know 
that  she  is  the  foremost  of  them  all,  that  she  could  rise  to 
heaven  with  your  support.  But,  then,  my  friend,"  she  added, 
with  a  lofty  glance  at  him,  "when  you  want  to  throw  her 
down,  do  not  miss  your  stroke ;  after  your  love,  death  !  " 

Calyste  had  his  arm  around  her  waist ;  he  clasped  her  to 
his  heart.  To  confirm  her  tender  words,  Madame  de  Roche- 
fide  sealed  Calyste's  forehead  with  the  most  chaste  and  timid 
kiss.  Then  they  went  down  the  path  and  returned  slowly, 
talking  like  two  people  who  perfectly  understand  and  enter 
into  each  other's  minds ;  she  believing  she  had  secured  peace, 
he  no  longer  doubting  that  he  was  to  be  happy — and  both 
deceived. 

Calyste  hoped  from  what  Camille  had  observed  that  Conti 


BEATRIX.  215 

would  be  delighted  to  seize  the  opportunity  of  giving  up 
Beatrix.  The  Marquise,  on  her  part,  abandoned  herself  to 
the  uncertainty  of  things,  waiting  on  chance.  Calyste  was 
too  deeply  in  love  and  too  ingenuous  to  create  the  chance. 
They  both  reached  les  Touches  in  the  most  delightful  frame 
of  mind,  going  in  by  the  garden  gate,  of  which  Calyste  had 
taken  the  key. 

It  was  now  about  six  o'clock.  The  intoxicating  perfumes, 
the  mild  atmosphere,  the  golden  tones  of  the  evening  light 
were  all  in  harmony  with  their  tender  mood  and  talk.  Their 
steps  were  matched  and  equal  as  those  of  lovers  are ;  their 
movements  betrayed  the  unison  of  their  mind.  Such  silence 
reigned  at  les  Touches  that  the  sound  of  the  opening  and 
closing  gate  echoed  distinctly,  and  must  have  been  heard  all 
over  the  grounds.  As  Calyste  and  Beatrix  had  said  all  they 
had  to  say,  and  their  agitating  walk  had  tired  them,  they 
came  in  slowly  and  without  speaking. 

Suddenly,  as  she  turned  an  angle,  Beatrix  was  seized  with 
a  spasm  of  horror — the  infectious  dread  that  is  caused  by  the 
sight  of  a  reptile,  and  that  chilled  Calyste  before  he  saw  its 
occasion.  On  a  bench  under  a  weeping  ash  Conti  sat  talking 
to  Camille  Maupin.  Madame  de  Rochefide's  convulsive  inter- 
nal trembling  was  more  evident  than  she  wished.  Calyste  now 
realized  how  dear  he  was  to  this  woman  who  had  just  built 
the  barrier  between  herself  and  him,  no  doubt  with  a  view 
to  securing  a  few  days  more  for  coquetting  before  overleap- 
ing it. 

In  one  instant  a  tragical  drama  in  endless  perspective  was 
felt  in  each  heart. 

"You  did  not  expect  me  so  soon,  I  dare  say,"  said  the 
artist,  offering  Beatrix  his  arm. 

The  Marquise  could  not  avoid  relinquishing  Calyste's  arm 
and  taking  Conti's.  This  undignified  transition,  so  impera- 
tively demanded,  so  full  of  offense  to  the  later  love,  was  too 
much   for  Calyste,  who  went  to  throw  himself  on  the  bench 


216  BEATRIX. 

by  Camille,  after  exchanging  the  most  distant  greeting  with 
his  rival.  He  felt  a  hundred  contending  sensations.  On  dis- 
cerning how  much'Beatrix  loved  him,  his  first  impulse  was  to 
rush  at  the  artist  and  declare  that  she  was  his  ;  but  the  poor 
woman's  moral  convulsion,  betraying  her  sufferings — for  she 
had  in  that  one  moment  paid  the  forfeit  of  all  her  sins — had 
startled  him  so  much  that  he  remained  stupefied,  stricken,  like 
her,  by  relentless  necessity.  These  antagonistic  impulses  pro- 
duced the  most  violent  storm  of  feeling  he  had  yet  known 
since  he  had  loved  Beatrix. 

Madame  de  Rochefide  and  Conti  went  past  the  seat  where 
Calyste  had  thrown  himself  by  Camille's  side,  the  Marquise 
looking  at  her  rival  with  one  of  those  terrible  flashes  by  which 
a  woman  can  convey  everything.  She  avoided  Calyste' s  eye, 
and  seemed  to  listen  to  Conti,  who  was  talking  lightly. 

"What  can  they  be  saying?"  asked  the  agitated  Calyste 
of  Camille. 

"  Dear  child,  you  have  no  idea  yet  of  the  terrible  hold  a 
man  has  over  a  woman  on  the  strength  of  a  dead  passion. 
Beatrix  could  not  refuse  him  her  hand.  He  is  laughing  at 
her,  no  doubt,  over  her  fresh  love  affair ;  he  guessed  it,  of 
course,  from  your  behavior  and  the  way  in  which  you  came 
in  together  when  he  saw  you." 

"  He  is  laughing  at  her  !  "  cried  the  vehement  youth. 

"Keep  calm,"  said  Camille,  "or  you  will  lose  the  few 
chances  that  remain  to  you.  If  he  wounds  Beatrix  too  much 
in  her  vanities,  she  will  trample  him  under  foot  like  a  worm. 
But  he  is  astute ;  he  will  know  how  to  do  it  cleverly.  He  will 
not  suppose  that  the  haughty  Madame  de  Rochefide  could 
possibly  be  false  to  him  !  It  would  be  too  base  to  love  a 
young  man  for  his  beauty  !  He  will  no  doubt  speak  of  you 
to  her  as  a  mere  boy  bewitched  by  the  notion  of  possessing  a 
Marquise  and  of  ruling  the  destinies  of  two  women.  Finally, 
he  will  thunder  with  the  rattling  artillery  of  insulting  insinu- 
ations.    Then  Beatrix  will  be  obliged  to  combat  him  with 


BEATRIX.  217 

false  denials,  of  which  he  will  take  advantage  and  remain 
master  of  the  field." 

"Ah  !  "  cried  Calyste,  "he  does  not  love.  I  should  leave 
her  free.  Love  demands  a  choice  renewed  every  minute,  con- 
firmed every  day.  The  morrow  is  the  justification  of  yester- 
day, and  increases  our  hoard  of  joys.  A  few  days  later  and 
he  would  not  have  found  us  here.     What  brought  him  back?" 

"A  journalist's  taunt,"  said  Camille.  "The  opera  on 
whose  success  he  had  counted  is  a  failure — a  dead  failure. 
These  words  spoken  in  the  greenroom,  perhaps  by  Claud 
Vignon,  '  It  is  hard  to  lose  your  reputation  and  your  mistress 
both  at  once  !  '  stung  him  no  doubt  in  all  his  vanities.  Love 
based  on  mean  sentiments  is  merciless. 

"  I  questioned  him  ;  but  who  can  trust  so  false  and  deceit- 
ful a  nature?  He  seemed  weary  of  poverty  and  of  love,  dis- 
gusted with  life.  He  regretted  having  connected  himself  so 
publicly  with  the  Marquise,  and  in  speaking  of  their  past 
happiness  fell  into  a  strain  of  poetic  melancholy  rather  too 
elegant  to  be  genuine.  He  hoped  no  doubt  to  extract  the 
secret  of  your  love  from  the  joy  his  flattery  must  give  me." 

"Well?"  said  Calyste,  looking  at  Beatrix  and  Conti  re- 
turning, and  listening  no  longer  to  Camille. 

Camille  had  prudently  kept  on  the  defensive  ;  she  had  not 
betrayed  either  Calyste's  secret  or  Beatrix's.  The  artist  was 
a  man  to  dupe  any  one  in  the  world,  and  Mademoiselle  des 
Touches  warned  Calyste  to  be  on  his  guard  with  him. 

"  My  dear  child,"  said  she,  "  this  is  for  you  the  most  crit- 
ical moment  ;  such  prudence  and  skill  are  needed  as  you 
have  not,  and  you  will  be  fooled  by  the  most  cunning  man 
on  earth  ;   for  I  can  do  no  more  for  you." 

A  bell  announced  that  dinner  was  served.  Conti  offered 
his  arm  to  Camille,  Beatrix  took  that  of  Calyste.  Camille 
let  the  Marquise  lead  the  way;  she  had  a  moment  to  look  at 
Calyste  and  enjoin  prudence  by  putting  her  finger  to  her  lips. 

All  through  dinner  Conti  was  in  the  highest  spirits.     This 


218  BE  A  TRIX. 

was  perhaps  a  way  of  gauging  Madame  de  Rochefide,  who 
played  her  part  badly.  As  a  coquette  she  might  have  de- 
ceived Conti ;  but,  being  seriously  in  love,  she  betrayed  her- 
self. -The  wily  musician,  far  from  watching  her,  seemed  not 
to  observe  her  embarrassment.  At  dessert  he  began  talking 
of  women  and  crying  up  their  noble  feelings. 

"  A  woman  who  would  desert  us  in  prosperity  will  sacrifice 
everything  to  us  in  adversity,"  said  he.  "  Women  have  the 
advantage  of  men  in  constancy  ;  a  woman  must  be  deeply 
offended  indeed  to  throw  over  a  first  lover ;  she  clings  to  him 

as  to  her  honor;  a  second   love  is  a  disgrace "  and  so 

forth. 

He  was  astoundingly  moral ;  he  burnt  incense  before  the 
altar  on  which  a  heart  was  bleeding  pierced  by  a  thousand 
stabs.  Only  Camille  and  Beatrix  understood  the  virulence 
of  the  acrid  satire  he  poured  out  in  the  form  of  praises. 
Now  and  again  they  both  colored,  but  they  were  obliged  to 
control  themselves;  they  went  up  to  Camille's  sitting-room 
arm  in  arm,  and  with  one  consent  passed  through  the  larger 
drawing-room,  where  there  were  no  lights,  and  they  could 
exchange  a  few  words. 

"I  cannot  endure  to  let  Conti  walk  over  my  prostrate  body, 
to  give  him  a  right  over  me,"  said  Beatrix  in  an  undertone. 
"The  convict  on  the  hulks  is  always  at  the  mercy  of  the  man 
he  is  chained  to.  I  am  lost !  I  must  go  back  to  the  hulks  of 
love  !  And  it  is  you  who  have  sent  me  back.  Ah,  you  made 
him  come  a  day  too  late — or  too  soon.  I  recognize  your  in- 
fernal gift  of  romance.  Yes,  the  revenge  is  complete  and  the 
climax  perfect." 

"  I  could  threaten  you  that  I  would  write  to  Conti,  but  as 
to  doing  it !  I  am  incapable  of  such  a  thing  !  "  cried  Camille. 
"You  are  miserable,  so  I  forgive  you." 

"What  will  become  of  Calyste?"  said  the  Marquise,  with 
the  exquisite  artlessness  of  vanity. 

"  Then  is  Conti  taking  you  away  ?  "  cried  Camille. 


BEATRIX.  219 

"Ah  !  you  expect  to  triumph?"  retorted  Beatrix. 

The  Marquise  spoke  the  hideous  words  with  rage,  her  beauti- 
ful features  distorted,  while  Camille  tried  to  conceal  her  glad- 
ness under  an  assumed  expression  of  regret ;  but  the  light  in 
her  eyes  gave  the  lie  to  the  gravity  of  her  face,  and  Beatrix 
could  see  through  a  mask  !  When  they  saw  each  other  by 
candlelight,  sitting  on  the  divan  where  during  the  last  three 
weeks  so  many  comedies  had  been  played  out,  where  the  secret 
tragedy  of  so  many  thwarted  passions  had  had  its  beginning, 
the  two  women  studied  each  other  for  the  last  time ;  they  saw 
that  they  were  divided  by  a  deep  gulf  of  hatred. 

"I  leave  you  Calyste,"  said  Beatrix,  seeing  her  rival's  eyes. 
"  But  I  am  fixed  in  his  heart,  and  no  woman  will  oust  me." 

Camille  retorted  by  quoting,  in  a  tone  of  subtle  irony 
which  stung  the  Marquise  to  the  quick,  the  famous  speech  of 
Mazarin's  niece  to  Louis  XIV.:  "You  reign,  you  love  him, 
and  you  are  going  J  " 

Neither  of  them  throughout  this  scene,  which  was  a  stormy 
one,  noticed  the  absence  of  Calyste  and  Conti.  The  artist 
had  remained  at  table  with  his  rival,  desiring  him  to  keep  him 
company  and  finish  a  bottle  of  champagne. 

"  We  have  something  to  say  to  each  other,"  said  Conti,  to 
anticipate  any  refusal. 

In  the  position  in  which  they  stood  to  each  other,  the 
young  Breton  was  obliged  to  obey  the  behest. 

"My  dear  boy,"  said  the  singer  in  a  soothing  voice  when 
Calyste  had  drunk  two  glasses  of  wine,  "  we  are  a  couple  of 
good  fellows;  we  may  be  frank  with  each  other.  I  did  not 
come  here  because  I  was  suspicious.  Beatrix  loves  me." 
And  he  assumed  a  fatuous  air.  "  For  my  part,  I  love  her  no 
longer ;  I  have  come,  not  to  carry  her  off,  but  to  break  with 
her  and  leave  her  the  credit  of  the  rupture.  You  are  young ; 
you  do  not  know  how  necessary  it  is  to  seem  the  victim  when 
you  feel  that  you  are  the  executioner.  Young  men  spout  fire 
and  flame,  they  make  a  parade  of  throwing  over  a  woman, 


220  BEATRIX. 

they  often  scorn  her  and  make  her  hate  them ;  but  a  wise  man 
gets  himself  dismissed,  and  puts  on  a  humiliated  expression 
which  leaves  the  lady  some  regrets  and  a  sweet  sense  of  supe- 
riority. The  displeasure  of  the  divinity  is  not  irremediable, 
while  abdication  is  past  all  reparation. 

"You,  happily  for  you,  do  not  yet  know  how  our  lives  may 
be  hampered  by  the  senseless  promises  which  women  are  such 
fools  as  to  accept,  when  gallantry  requires  us  to  tie  such  slip- 
knots to  divert  the  idle  hours  of  happiness.  The  pair  then 
swear  eternal  fidelity.  A  man  has  some  adventure  with  a 
woman — he  does  not  fail  to  assure  her  politely  that  he  hopes 
to  live  and  die  with  her;  he  pretends  to  be  impatiently  await- 
ing the  demise  of  a  husband  while  earnestly  wishing  him  per- 
fect health.  If  the  husband  should  die,  there  are  women  so 
provincial  or  so  tenacious,  so  silly  or  so  wily,  as  to  rush  on  the 
man,  crying,  '  I  am  free —  here  I  am  !  ' 

"  Not  one  of  us  is  free.  The  spent  ball  recoils  and  falls 
into  the  midst  of  our  best-planned  triumph  or  our  greatest 
happiness. 

"I  foresaw  that  you  would  love  Beatrix;  I  left  her  in  a 
situation  in  which  she  must  need  flirt  with  you  without  abdi- 
cating her  sacred  majesty,  were  it  only  to  annoy  that  angel, 
Camille  Maupin.  Well,  my  dear  fellow,  love  her :  you  will 
be  doing  me  a  service.  I  only  want  her  to  behave  atrociously 
to  me.  I  dread  her  pride  and  her  virtue.  Perhaps,  in  spite 
of  good-will  on  my  side,  some  time  will  be  required  for  this 
manceuvre.  On  such  occasions  the  one  who  does  not  take 
the  first  step  wins.  Just  now,  as  we  walked  around  the  lawn, 
I  tried  to  tell  her  that  I  knew  all,  and  wished  her  joy  of  her 
happiness.     Well,  she  was  very  angry. 

"I,  at  this  moment,  am  in  love  with  the  youngest  of  our 
singers,  Mademoiselle  Falcon,  of  the  opera,  and  I  want  to 
marry  her.  Yes,  I  have  gotten  so  far  as  that-!  But  when 
you  come  to  Paris,  you  will  say  I  have  exchanged  a  marquise 
for  a  queen  !  " 


SEA  TRIX.  221 

Joy  shed  its  glory  on  Calyste's  candid  face;  he  confessed 
his  love ;  this  was  all  that  Conti  wanted. 

There  is  not  a  man  in  the  world,  however  blase,  however 
depraved,  whose  love  does  not  revive  as  soon  as  it  is  threat- 
ened by  a  rival.  We  may  wish  to  be  rid  of  a  woman ;  we  do 
not  wish  that  she  should  throw  us  over.  When  lovers  have 
come'  to  this  extremity,  men  and  women  alike  try  to  be  first 
in  the  field,  so  cruel  is  the  wound  to  their  self-respect.  Per^ 
haps  what  is  at  stake  is  all  that  society  has  thrown  into  that 
feeling)  it  is  indeed  less  a  matter  of  self-respect  than  of  life 
itself,  the  whole  future  is  in  the  balance;  we  feel  as  if  we  were 
2osing  not  the  interest,  but  the  capital. 

Calyste,  cross-examined  by  the  artist,  related  all  that  had 
happened  during  these  three  weeks  at  les  Touches,  and  was 
delighted  with  Conti,  who  concealed  his  rage  under  a  sem- 
blance of  delightful  good-nature. 

"Let  us  go  upstairs,"  said  he.  "Women  are  not  trustful ; 
they  will  not  understand  how  we  can  have  sat  together  for  so 
long  without  clutching  at  each  other's  hair;  they  might  come 
down  to  listen.  I  will  do  all  I  can  for  you,  my  dear  child. 
I  will  be  odious,  rude,  and  jealous  with  the  Marquise ;  I  will 
constantly  suspect  her  of  deceiving  me — there  is  nothing  more 
certain  to  lead  a  woman  to  a  betrayal ;  you  will  be  happy, 
and  I  shall  be  free.  You,  this  evening,  must  assume  the  part 
of  a  disconcerted  lover ;  I  shall  play  the  suspicious  and  jealous 
man.  Pity  the  angel  for  her  inthrallment  to  a  man  without 
fine  feelings — weep  !  You  can  weep,  you  are  young.  I,  alas, 
can  no  longer  weep ;  it  is  a  great  advantage  lost." 

Calyste  and  Conti  went  upstairs.  The  musician,  requested 
to  sing  by  his  young  rival,  chose  the  greatest  test  known  to 
musical  executants,  the  famous  "Pria  che  spunti  T  aurora  " 
which  Rubini  himself  never  attempts  without  a  qualm,  and  in 
which  Conti  had  often  triumphed.  Never  had  he  been  more 
wonderful  than  at  this  moment  when  so  many  feelings  were 
seething  in  his  breast.     Calyste  was  in  ecstasies.     At  the  first 


222  BE  A  TRIX. 

note  of  the  cavatina  the  singer  fired  a  glance  at  the  Marquise 
which  gave  cruel  significance  to  the  words,  and  which  was 
understood.  Camille,  playing  the  accompaniment,  guessed 
that  it  was  a  command  that  made  Beatrix  bow  her  head.  She 
looked  at  Calyste,  and  suspected  that  the  boy  had  fallen  into 
some  snare  in  spite  of  her  warnings.  She  was  certain  of  it 
when  the  youth  went  gleefully  to  bid  Beatrix  good-night, 
kissing  her  hand  and  pressing  it  with  a  little  knowing  and 
confident  look. 

By  the  time  Calyste  had  reached  Guerande  the  ladies'  maid 
and  servants  were  packing  Conti's  traveling  carriage  ;  and 
"  before  the  dawn,"  as  he  had  sung,  he  had  carried  off  Beatrix, 
with  Camille's  horses,  as  far  as  the  first  posting-house. 

Under  cover  of  the  darkness,  Madame  de  Rochefide  was 
able  to  look  back  at  Guerande,  whose  tower,  white  in  the 
daybreak,  stood  out  in  the  gray  light.  She  gave  herself  up 
to  melancholy — for  she  was  leaving  there  one  of  the  fairest 
flowers  of  life — love  such  as  the  purest  girls  may  dream  of. 
Respect  of  persons  was  crushing  the  only  true  love  this  woman 
had  ever  known,  or  could  ever  know,  in  all  her  life.  The 
woman  of  the  world  was  obeying  the  laws  of  the  world,  sacri- 
ficing love  to  appearances,  as  some  women  sacrifice  it  to  re- 
ligion or  to  duty.  From  this  point  of  view,  this  terrible  story 
is  that  of  many  women. 

Next  day,  at  about  noon,  Calyste  arrived  at  les  Touches. 
When  he  reached  the  turn  in  the  road  whence,  yesterday,  he 
had  seen  Beatrix  at  the  window,  he  caught  sight  of  Camille, 
who  hurried  out  to  meet  him.  At  the  bottom  of  the  stairs 
she  said  this  cruel  word — 

"Gone!" 

"  Beatrix?  "  cried  Calyste,  stunned. 

"You  were  duped  by  Conti.  You  told  me  nothing;  I 
could  do  nothing." 

She  led  the  poor  boy  to  her  little  drawing-room ;  he  sank 
on  the  divan,  in  the  place  where  he  had  so  often  seen  the 


BE  A  TRIX.  223 

Marquise,  and  melted  into  tears.  Felicite  said  nothing  ;  she 
smoked  her  hookah,  knowing  that  nothing  can  stem  the  first 
rush  of  such  suffering,  which  is  always  deaf  and  speechless. 
Calyste,  since  there  was  nothing  to  be  done,  stayed  there  all 
day  in  a  state  of  utter  torpor.  Just  before  dinner,  Camille 
tried  to  say  a  few  words  to  him,  after  begging  that  he  would 
listen  to  her. 

"My  dear  boy,"  said  she,  "you  have  been  the  cause  to 
me  of  intense  suffering,  and  I  have  not,  as  you  have,  a  fair 
future  life  in  which  to  recover.  To  me  the  earth  has  no 
further  springtime,  the  soul  no  further  love.  So  I,  to  find 
comfort,  must  look  higher. 

"  Here,  the  day  before  Beatrix  came,  I  painted  her  por- 
trait ;  I  would  not  darken  it,  you  would  have  thought  that  I 
was  jealous.  Now,  listen  to  the  truth.  Madame  de  Roche- 
fide  is  as  far  as  possible  from  being  worthy  of  you.  The  dis- 
play of  her  fall  was  not  necessary,  but  she  would  have  been 
nobody  but  for  that  scandal ;  she  made  it  on  purpose  to  have 
a  part  to  play.  She  is  one  of  those  women  who  prefer  the 
parade  of  wrongdoing  to  the  calm  peace  of  happiness  ;  they 
affront  society  to  wring  from  it  the  evil  gift  of  a  slander  ; 
they  must  be  talked  about,  at  whatever  cost.  She  was  eaten 
up  by  vanity.  Her  fortune  and  wit  had  not  availed  to  give 
her  the  feminine  dominion  which  she  had  tried  to  conquer  by 
presiding  over  a  salon ;  she  had  fancied  that  she  could  achieve 
the  celebrity  of  the  Duchesse  de  Langeais  and  the  Vicomtesse 
de  Beauseant  ;  but  the  world  is  just,  it  bestows  the  honors  of 
its  interest  only  on  genuine  passion. 

"  Her  flight  was  not  justified  by  any  obstacles.  Damocles' 
sword  did  not  hang  glittering  over  her  festivities  ;  and  beside, 
in  Paris,  those  who  love  truly  and  sincerely  may  easily  be 
happy  in  a  quiet  way.  In  short,  if  she  could  be  tender  and 
loving,  she  would  not  have  gone  off  last  night  with  Conti." 

Camille  talked  for  a  long  time,  and  very  eloquently,  but 
this  last  effort  was  in  vain  ;  she  ceased  on  seeing  a  shrug,  by 


224  BE  A  TRIX. 

which  Calyste  conveyed  his  entire  belief  in  Beatrix,  and  she 
insisted  on  his  coming  down  and  sitting  with  her  at  dinner, 
for  he  found  it  impossible  to  eat. 

It  is  only  while  we  are  very  young  that  these  spasmodic 
symptoms  occur.  At  a  later  period  the  organs  have  formed 
habits,  and  are,  as  it  were,  hardened.  The  reaction  of  the 
moral  system  on  the  physical  is  never  strong  enough  to  induce 
mortal  illness  unless  the  constitution  preserves  its  original 
delicacy.  A  man  can  resist  a  violent  grief  which  kills  a 
youth,  less  because  his  feelings  are  not  so  strong  than  because 
his  organs  are  stronger.  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  was  in- 
deed alarmed  from  the  first  by  Calyste' s  calm  and  resigned 
attitude  after  the  first  flood  of  tears.  Before  leaving  the 
house,  he  begged  to  see  Beatrix's  room  once  more,  and  hid 
his  face  in  the  pillow  on  which  hers  had  rested. 

"This  is  folly!  "  said  he,  shaking  hands  with  Camille  and 
leaving  her,  sunk  in  melancholy. 

He  returned  home,  found  the  usual  party  engaged  in  playing 
tnouche,  and  sat  by  his  mother  all  the  evening.  The  cure, 
the  Chevalier  du  Halga,  and  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  all 
knew  of  Madame  de  Rochefide's  departure,  and  were  all  glad. 
Calyste  would  now  come  back  to  them,  and  they  all  watched, 
almost  by  stealth,  seeing  that  he  was  silent.  Nobody  in  that 
old  house  could  conceive  of  all  that  this  death  of  a  first  love 
must  be  to  a  heart  so  true  and  artless  as  Calyste's. 

For  some  days  Calyste  went  regularly  to  les  Touches;  he 
would  wander  round  the  grass-plot  where  he  had  sometimes 
walked  arm  in  arm  with  Beatrix.  He  often  went  as  far  as 
le  Croisic,  and  climbed  the  rock  whence  he  had  tried  to  throw 
her  into  the  sea;  he  would  sit  for  hours  leaning  on  the  box- 
shrub,  for  by  examining  the  projections  on  the  riven  rock  he 
had  learned  to  climb  up  and  down  the  face  of  it.  His  solitary 
expeditions,  his  silence,  and  his  lack  of  appetite  at  last  made 
his  mother  uneasy.     At  the  end  of  a  fortnight,  while  these 


BE  A  TRIX.  225 

proceedings  lasted — a  good  deal  like  those  of  an  animal  in  its 
cage,  and  the  despairing  lover's  cage  was,  to  adopt  La  Fon- 
taine's phrase,  "the  spots  honored  by  the  footstep,  illumi- 
nated by  the  eyes"  of  Beatrix — Calyste  could  no  longer  cross 
the  little  inlet ;  he  had  only  strength  enough  to  drag  himself 
as  far  on  the  Guerande  road  as  the  spot  whence  he  had  seen 
Beatrix  at  the  window. 

The  family,  glad  at  the  departing  of  "the  Parisians,"  to 
use  the  provincial  phrase,  discerned  nothing  ominous  or  sickly 
in  Calyste.  The  two  old  maids  and  the  cure,  following  up 
their  plan,  had  kept  Charlotte  de  Kergarouet,  who,  in  the 
evening,  made  eyes  at  Calyste,  and  got  nothing  in  return  but 
advice  as  to  her  game  of  mouche.  All  through  the  evening 
Calyste  would  sit  between  his  mother  and  his  provincial 
fiancee,  under  the  eye  of  the  cure  and  of  Charlotte's  aunt, 
who,  on  their  way  home,  would  comment  on  his  greater  or 
less  dejection.  They  took  the  unhappy  boy's  indifference  for 
acquiescence  in  their  plans. 

One  evening,  when  Calyste,  being  tired,  had  gone  early  to 
bed,  the  players  all  left  their  cards  on  the  table  and  looked  at 
each  other  as  the  young  man  shut  his  bedroom  door.  They 
had  listened  anxiously  to  his  footsteps. 

"Something  ails  Calyste,"  said  the  Baroness,  wiping  her 
eyes. 

"There  is  nothing  the  matter  with  him,"  replied  Made- 
moiselle de  Pen-Hoel ;  "  we  must  get  him  married  as  soon  as 
may  be." 

"  Do  you  think  that  will  divert  him  ?  "  said  the  chevalier. 

Charlotte  looked  sternly  at  Monsieur  du  Halga,  whom  she 
thought,  in  very  bad  taste  this  evening,  immoral,  depraved, 
irreligious,  and  quite  ridiculous  with  his  dog,  in  spite  of  her 
aunt,  who  always  took  the  old  sailor's  part. 

"To-morrow  morning  I  will  lecture  Calyste,"  said  the  old 
Baron,  whom  they  had  thought  asleep ;  "  I  do  not  want  to  go 
out  of  this  world  without  having  seen  my  grandson,  a  little 
15 


226  BE  A  TRIX. 

pink-and-white  du   Guenic,  with  a  Breton  hood  on,   in  his 

cradle." 

"  He  never  speaks  a  word,"  said  old  Zephirine*-;  "no  one 
knows  what  ails  him ;  he  never  ate  less  in  his  life ;  what  does 
he  live  on  ?  If  he  eats  at  les  Touches,  the  devil's  cookery- 
does  him  no  good." 

"  He  is  in  love',"  said  the  chevalier,  proffering  this  opinion 
with  extreme  timidity. 

"  Now,  then,  old  dotard,  you  have  not  put  into  the  pool," 
said  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel.  "  When  you  are  thinking 
of  your  young  days,  you  forget  everything  else." 

"  Come  to  breakfast  with  us  to-morrow  morning,"  said  old 
Zephirine  to  Charlotte  and  Jacqueline  ;  "  my  brother  will  talk 
to  his  son,  and  we  will  settle  everything.  One  nail  drives  out 
another." 

"  Not  in  a  Breton,"  said  the  chevalier. 

The  next  morning  Calyste  saw  Charlotte  arrive,  dressed  with 
unusual  care,  though  it  was  still  early,  just  as  his  father  had 
ended  giving  him,  in  the  dining-room,  a  discourse  on  matri- 
mony, to  which  the  lad  could  find  nothing  to  say.  He  knew 
how  ignorant  his  aunt,  his  father,  and  his  mother  were,  and 
all  their  friends  ;  he  was  gathering  the  fruits  of  knowledge  ■ 
he  found  himself  isolated,  no  longer  speaking  the  language  of 
the  household.  So  he  only  begged  a  few  days'  respite,  and 
his  father  rubbed  his  hands  with  joy  and  gave  new  life  to  tht 
Baroness  by  whispering  the  good  news  in  her  ear. 

Breakfast  was  a  cheerful  meal.  Charlotte,  to  whom  the 
Baron  had  given  a  wink,  was  in  high  spirits.  A  rumor  filtered 
through  Gasselin,  by  which  all  the  town  knew  that  the  du 
Guenics  and  the  Kergarouets  had  come  to  an  understanding. 
After  breakfast  Calyste  went  out  of  the  hall  by  the  steps  on 
the  garden-side,  and  was  followed  by  Charlotte ;  he  offered 
her  his  arm,  and  led  her  to  the  arbor  at  the  bottom  of  the 
garden.  The  old  folk,  standing  at  the  window,  looked  at 
them  with  a  sort  of  pathos.     Charlotte  looked  back  at  the 


BE  A  TRIX.  227 

pretty  house,  somewhat  uneasy  at  her  companion's  silence,  and 
took  advantage  of  their  presence  to  begin  the  conversation  by 
saying  to  Calyste,  "  They  are  watching  us  !  " 

"They  cannot  hear  us,"  he  replied. 

"  No,  but  they  can  see  us." 

"  Let  us  sit  down,"  said  Calyste  gently,  as  he  took  her 
hand. 

"Is  it  true  that  your  banner  once  floated  from  that  twisted 
pillar?"  asked  Charlotte,  looking  at  the  house  as  if  it  were 
her  own.  "It  would  look  well  there!  How  happy  one 
might  be  here  !  You  will  make  some  alterations  in  the  ar- 
rangement of  your  house,  will  you  not,  Calyste?" 

"I  shall  have  no  time  for  it,  my  dear  Charlotte,"  said  the 
young  man,  taking  her  hands  and  kissing  them.  "  I  will  tell 
you  my  secret.  I  love  a  woman  whom  you  have  seen,  and 
who  loves  me — love  her  too  well  to  make  any  other  woman 
happy ;  and  I  know  that  from  our  infancy  you  and  I  have 
always  been  intended  to  marry." 

"But  she  is  married,  Calyste,"  said  Charlotte. 

"  I  will  wait,"  said  the  boy. 

"And  so  will  I,"  said  Charlotte,  her  eyes  full  of  tears. 
"  You  cannot  love  that  woman  for  long;  she  has  gone  off  with 
a  singer,  they  say " 

"Marry  some  one  else,  my  dear  Charlotte,"  said  Calyste. 
"  With  such  a  fortune  as  your  aunt  has  to  leave  you,  which  is 
enormous  in  Brittany,  you  can  find  a  better  match  than  I. 
You  will  find  a  man  with  a  title.  I  have  not  brought  you  out 
here  to  tell  you  what  you  already  know,  but  to  entreat  you  in 
the  name  of  our  long  friendship  to  take  the  matter  upon  your- 
self and  to  refuse  me.  Say  that  you  can  have  nothing  to  say 
to  a  man  whose  heart  is  not  free,  and  my  passion  will  at  least 
have  been  so  far  serviceable  that  I  shall  have  done  you  no 
wrong.  You  cannot  think  how  life  weighs  upon  me !  I 
cannot  endure  any  struggle,  I  am  as  weak  as  a  body  deserted 
by  its  soul,  by  the  very  element  of  life.     But  for  the  grief  that 


228  BEA  TRIX. 

my  death  would  be  to  my  mother  and  my  aunt,  I  should  have 
thrown  myself  into  the  sea  ere  now,  and  I  have  never  gone  to 
the  rocks  of  le  Croisic  since  the  day  when  the  temptation 
began  to  be  irresistible.  Say  nothing  of  this.  Charlotte,  fare- 
well." 

He  took  the  girl's  head  in  his  hands,  kissed  her  hair,  went 
out  by  the  path  under  the  gable,  and  made  his  escape  to 
Camille's,  where  he  remained  till  midnight. 

On  returning  at  about  one  in  the  morning  he  found  his 
mother  busy  with  her  tapestry,  waiting  for  him.  He  crept  in 
softly,  took  her  hand,  and  asked — 

"  Is  Charlotte  gone  ?  " 

"She  is  going  to-morrow  with  her  aunt;  they  are  both  in 
despair.  Come  to  Ireland,  my  Calyste,"  she  added,  caressing 
him-. 

"How  many  times  have  I  dreamed  of  flying  thither!" 
said  he. 

"  Really  !  "  exclaimed  the  Baroness. 

"With  Beatrix,"  he  added. 

Some  days  after  Charlotte's  departure,  Calyste  was  walking 
with  the  Chevalier  du  Halga  on  the  mall,  and  he  sat  down  in 
the  sun  on  a  bench  whence  his  eye  could  command  the  whole 
landscape,  from  the  weathercocks  of  les  Touches  to  the  shoals 
marked  out  by  the  foaming  breakers  which  dance  above  the 
reefs  at  high-tide.  Calyste  was  thin  and  pale,  his  strength 
was  diminishing,  he  was  beginning  to  have  little  periodical 
shivering  fits,  symptomatic  of  fever.  His  eyes,  with  dark 
marks  round  them,  had  the  hard  glitter  which  a  fixed  idea 
will  give  to  lonely  persons,  or  which  the  ardor  of  the  struggle 
imparts  to  the  bold  leaders  of  the  civilization  of  our  age. 
The  chevalier  was  the  only  person  with  whom  he  sometimes 
exchanged  his  ideas  \  he  had  discerned  in  this  old  man  an 
apostle  of  his  religion,  and  found  in  him  the  traces  of  a  never- 
dying  love. 

"Have  you  loved  many  women  in  your  life?"  he  asked, 


BE  A  TRIX.  229 

the  second  time  that  he  and  the  old  navy  man  sailed  in  com- 
pany, as  the  captain  called  it,  up  and  down  the  mall. 

"Only  one,"  said  the  captain. 

"Was  she  free?" 

"No,"  said  the  chevalier.  "Ah,  I  suffered  much!  She 
was  my  best  friend's  wife — my  patron's,  my  chief's;  but  we 
loved  each  other  so  much  !  " 

"  She  loved  you,  then  ?  " 

"Passionately,"  replied  du  Halga  with  unwonted  vehem- 
ence. 

"And  you  were  happy?  " 

"Till  her  death.  She  died  at  the  age  of  forty-nine,  an 
emigree  at  Saint-Petersburg ;  the  climate  killed  her.  She 
must  be  very  cold  in  her  coffin  !  I  have  often  thought  of 
going  to  bring  her  away  and  lay  her  in  our  beloved  Brittany, 
near  me  !     But  she  rests  in  my  heart  ?  " 

The  chevalier  wiped  his  eyes ;  Calyste  took  his  hands  and 
pressed  them. 

"I  cling  to  that  dog  more  than  to  my  life,"  said  he,  point- 
ing to  Thisbe.  "That  little  creature  is  in  every  particular 
exactly  like  the  dog  she  used  to  fondle  with  her  beautiful 
hands,  and  to  take  on  her  knees.  I  never  look  at  Thisbe 
without  seeing  Madame  de  Kergarouet's  hands." 

"Have  you  seen  Madame  de  Rochefide?"  asked  Calyste. 

"No,"  replied  du  Halga.  "It  is  fifty-eight  years  now 
since  I  looked  at  a  woman,  excepting  your  mother;  there  is 
something  in  her  coloring  that  is  like  the  admiral's  wife." 

Three  days  later  the  chevalier  said  to  Calyste  as  they  met 
on  the  mall — 

"  My  boy,  all  I  have  in  the  world  is  a  hundred  and  eighty 
louis.  When  you  know  where  to  find  Madame  de  Rochefide, 
come  and  ask  me  for  them,  to  go  to  see  her." 

Calyste  thanked  the  old  man,  whose  life  he  envied.  But 
day  by  day  he  became  more  morose ;  he  seemed  to  care  for 
no  one ;  he  was  gentle  and  kind  only  to  his  mother.     The 


230  BEATRIX. 

Baroness  watched  the  progress  of  this  mania  with  increasing 
anxiety  ;  she  alone,  by  much  entreaty,  could  persuade  Calyste 
to  take  some  nourishment. 

By  the  beginning  of  October  the  young  fellow  could  no 
longer  walk  on  the  mall  with  the  chevalier,  who  came  in  vain 
to  ask  him  out  with  an  old  man's  attempts  at  coaxing. 

"  We  will  talk  about  Madame  de  Rochefide,"  said  he.  "I 
will  tell  you  the  history  of  my  first  adventure.  Your  son  is 
very  ill, M  said  he  to  the  Baroness,  on  the  day  when  his 
urgency  proved  useless. 

Calyste  replied  to  all  who  questioned  him  that  he  was 
perfectly  well,  and,  like  all  melancholy  youths,  relished  the 
notion  of  death ;  but  he  never  left  the  house  now ;  he  sat 
in  the  garden  on  the  seat,  warming  himself  in  the  pale, 
mild  autumn  sunshine,  alone  with  his  thoughts,  and  avoid- 
ing all  company. 

After  the  day  when  Calyste  no  longer  went  to  call  on  her, 
Felicite  begged  the  cure  of  Guerande  to  go  to  see  her.  The 
Abbe  Grimont's  regularity  in  going  to  les  Touches  almost 
every  morning,  and  dining  there  from  time  to  time,  became 
the  news  of  the  moment ;  it  was  talked  of  in  all  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  even  at  Nantes.  However,  he  never  missed 
spending  the  evening  at  Guerande,  where  despair  reigned. 
Masters  and  servants,  all  were  grieved  by  Calyste's  obstinacy, 
though  they  did  not  think  him  in  any  danger.  It  never  oc- 
curred to  any  one  of  these  good  people  that  the  poor  youth 
could  die  of  love.  The  chevalier  had  no  record  of  such  a 
death  in  all  his  travels  or  reminiscences.  Everybody  ascribed 
Calyste's  emaciation  to  want  of  nutrition.  His  mother  would 
go  on  her  knees  to  beseech  him  to  eat.  To  please  her,  Ca- 
lyste tried  to  overcome  his  repugnance,  and  the  food  thus 
taken  against  his  will  added  to  the  low  fever  that  was  consum- 
ing the  handsome  boy. 

At  the  end  of  October  the  beloved  son  no  longer  went  up  to 


BE  A  TRIX.  231 

his  room  on  the  second  floor ;  he  had  his  bed  brought  down 
into  the  sitting-room,  and  lay  there  generally,  in  the  midst  of 
the  family,  who  at  last  sent  for  the  Guerande  doctor. 

The  medical  man  tried  to  check  the  fever  by  quinine,  and 
for  a  few  days  it  yielded  to  the  treatment.  The  doctor  also 
ordered  Calyste  to  take  exercise  and  to  amuse  himself.  The 
Baron  rallied  his  strength  and  shook  off  his  torpor ;  he  grew 
young  as  his  son  grew  old.  He  took  out  Calyste,  Gasselin, 
and  the  two  fine  sporting  dogs.  Calyste  obeyed  his  father, 
and  for  a  few  days  the  three  men  went  out  together ;  they 
went  through  the  forest  and  visited  their  friends  in  neighbor- 
ing chateaux;  but  Calyste  had  no  spirit,  no  one  could  beguile 
him  of  a  smile,  his  pale,  rigid  face  revealed  a  perfectly  passive 
creature. 

The  Baron,  broken  by  fatigue,  fell  into  a  state  of  collapse 
and  was  forced  to  come  home,  bringing  Calyste  with  him  in 
the  same  condition.  Within  a  few  days  both  father  and  son 
were  so  ill  that,  at  the  request  of  the  Guerande  doctor  him- 
self, the  two  first  physicians  of  Nantes  were  called  in.  The 
Baron  had  been  quite  knocked  over  by  the  visible  alteration 
in  Calyste.  With  the  terrible  prescience  that  nature  bestows 
on  the  dying,  he  trembled  like  a  child  at  the  thought  that  his 
family  would  be  extinct ;  he  said  nothing,  he  only  clasped 
his  hands,  praying  as  he  sat  in  his  chair,  to  which  he  was  tied 
by  weakness.  He  sat  facing  the  bed  occupied  by  Calyste, 
and  watched  him  constantly.  At  his  child's  slightest  move- 
ment he  was  greatly  agitated,  as  if  the  flame  of  his  life  were 
fluttered  by  it. 

The  Baroness  never  left  the  room,  and  old  Zephirine  sat 
knitting  by  the  fire  in  a  state  of  agonizing  anxiety.  She  was 
constantly  being  asked  for  wood,  for  the  father  and  son  both 
felt  the  cold,  and  her  stores  were  invaded.  She  had  made  up 
her  mind  to  give  up  her  keys,  for  she  was  no  longer  brisk 
enough  to  go  with  Mariotte ;  but  she  insisted  on  knowing 
everything ;  every  minute  she  questioned  Mariotte  or  her  sis- 


232  BE  A  TRIX. 

ter-in-law,  and  would  take  them  aside  to  hear  about  the  state 
of  her  brother  and  nephew. 

One  evening,  when  Calyste  and  his  father  were  dozing,  old 
Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  remarked  that  they  would  no 
doubt  have  to  resign  themselves  to  losing  the  Baron,  whose 
face  was  quite  white,  and  had  assumed  a  waxen  look.  Made- 
moiselle du  Guenic  dropped  her  knitting,  fumbled  in  her 
pocket,  and  pulled  out  an  old  rosary  of  black  wooden  beads, 
which  she  proceeded  to  tell  with  a  fervency  that  gave  such  a 
glory  of  energy  to  her  ancient  parched  features  that  the  other 
old  maid  followed  her  example ;  and  then,  at  a  sign  from  the 
cure,  they  all  united  in  the  silent  exaltation  of  the  old  blind 
lady. 

"I  was  the  first  to  pray  to  God,"  said  the  Baroness,  re- 
membering the  fateful  letter  written  by  Calyste,  "but  He  did 
not  hear  me!" 

"Perhaps,"  said  the  Abbe  Grimont,  "we  should  be  wise 
to  beg  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  to  come  to  see  Calyste." 

"  She  !  "  cried  old  Zephirine,  "  the  author  of  all  our  woes, 
she  who  lured  him  away  from  his  family,  who  tore  him  from 
us,  who  made  him  read  impious  books,  who  taught  him  the 
language  of  heresy  !  Curse  her,  and  may  God  never  forgive 
her  !     She  has  crushed  the  du  Guenics  !  " 

"  She  may  perhaps  raise  them  up  again,"  said  the  cure  in  a 
mild  voice.  "She  is  a  saintly  and  virtuous  woman:  I  am 
her  warranty.  She  has  none  but  good  intentions  as  regards 
Calyste.     May  she  be  able  to  realize  them  !  " 

"  Give  me  notice  the  day  she  is  to  set  foot  here,  and  I  will 
go  out,"  cried  the  old  lady.  "  She  has  killed  both  father  and 
son.  Do  you  suppose  I  cannot  hear  how  weak  Calyste's  voice 
is  ! — he  hardly  has  strength  to  speak." 

Just  then  the  three  physicians  came  in.  They  wearied 
Calyste  with  questions.  As  to  his  father,  their  examination 
was  brief;  they  knew  all  in  a  moment ;  the  only  wonder  was 
that  he  still  lived.     The  Guerande  doctor  quietly  explained 


BE  A  TRIX.  233 

to  the  Baroness  that  it  would  probably  be  necessary  to  take 
Calyste  to  Paris  to  consult  the  most  eminent  authorities,  for 
that  it  would  cost  more  than  a  hundred  louis  to  bring  them  to 
Guerande. 

"A  man  must  die  of  something,  but  love  is  nothing,"  said 
Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoe'l. 

"Alas,  whatever  the  cause  may  be,  Calyste  is  dying,"  said 
his  mother.  "I  recognize  every  symptom  of  consumption, 
the  most  horrible  malady  of  my  native  land." 

"Calyste  is  dying?"  said  the  Baron,  opening  his  eyes, 
whence  trickled  two  large  tears  which,  caught  in  the  many 
furrows  of  his  face,  slowly  fell  to  the  bottom  of  his  cheeks — 
the  only  tears,  no  doubt,  that  he  had  ever  shed  in  his  life. 

He  dragged  himself  on  to  his  feet,  shuffled  to  his  son's  bed, 
took  his  hands,  and  looked  at  him. 

"What  do  you  want,  father?"  said  the  boy. 

"  I  want  you  to  live  !  "  cried  the  Baron. 

"I  cannot  live  without  Beatrix,"  said  Calyste  to  the  old 
man,  who  sank  back  into  his  chair. 

"Where  can  I  find  a  hundred  louis  to  fetch  the  doctors 
from  Paris?"  cried  the  Baroness.      "We  have  yet  time." 

"A  hundred  louis!"  exclaimed  Zephirine.  "Will  they 
save  him?  " 

Without  waiting  for  her  sister-in-law's  reply,  the  old  woman 
put  her  hands  into  her  pocket-holes  and  untied  an  under  pet- 
ticoat, which  fell  with  a  heavy  sound.  She  knew  so  well 
where  she  had  sewn  in  her  louis  that  she  ripped  them  out 
with  a  rapidity  that  seemed  magical.  The  gold-pieces  rang 
as  they  dropped  one  by  one.  Old  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel 
looked  on  with  stupefied  amazement. 

"  They  can  see  you  !  "  she  whispered,  as  a  warning,  in  her 
friend's  ear. 

"Thirty-seven,"  said  Zephirine,  counting  the  gold. 

"  Every  one  will  know  how  much  you  have." 

"Forty-two." 


234  BEATRIX. 

"  Double  louis,  and  all  new !  how  did  you  get  them,  you 
who  cannot  see  them  ? ' ' 

"I  could  feel  them.  Here  are  a  hundred  and  four  louis," 
cried  Zephirine.      "  Is  that  enough?  " 

"What  are  you  doing?"  asked  the  Chevalier  du  Halga, 
coming  in,  and  unable  to  imagine  what  was  the  meaning  of 
the  old  lady's  holding  out  her  lap  full  of  louis  d'or. 

Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  explained  the  case  in  two  words. 

"  I  had  heard  of  it,"  said  he,  "and  I  came  to  bring  you 
a  hundred  and  forty  louis  I  had  kept  at  Calyste's  service,  as 
he  knows." 

The  chevalier  took  out  of  his  pocket  two  rolls  of  coin, 
which  he  showed  them.  Mariotte,  seeing  all  these  riches, 
bid  Gasselin  lock  the  door. 

"Gold  will  not  restore  him  to  health,"  said  the  Baroness, 
•in  tears. 

"But  it  may  enable  him  to  run  after  his  Marquise,"  said 
du  Halga.      "  Come,  Calyste  !  " 

Calyste  sat  up  in  bed,  and  exclaimed  gleefully — 

"Let  us  be  off!" 

"Then  he  will  live,"  said  the  Baron,  in  a  stricken  voice, 
"and  I  may  die.     Go  and  fetch  the  cure." 

These  words  struck  them  all  with  terror.  Calyste,  seeing 
his  father  turn  ghastly  pale  from  the  painful  agitation  of  this 
scene,  could  not  restrain  his  tears.  The  cure,  who  knew  the 
decision  the  doctors  had  come  to,  had  gone  off  to  fetch 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches  ;  for  at  this  moment  he  displayed 
as  much  admiration  for  her  as  he  had  not  long  since  felt 
repugnance,  and  could  defend  her  as  a  pastor  defends  one  of 
the  favorites  of  his  flock. 

On  hearing  of  the  Baron's  desperate  extremity,  a  crowd 
gathered  in  the  little  street ;  the  peasants,  the  marshmen,  and 
the  townsfolk  all  kneeling  in  the  courtyard,  while  the  priest 
administered  the  last  sacrament  to  the  old  Breton  warrior. 
Everybody  was  deeply  touched  to  think  of  the  father  dying 


BE  A  TRIX.  235 

by  the  bed  of  his  sick  son.  The  extinction  of  the  old  family 
was  regarded  as  a  public  calamity. 

The  ceremony  struck  Calyste;  for  a  while  his  grief  silenced 
his  passion.  All  through  the  death-struggles  of  this  heroic 
defender  of  the  monarchy  he  remained  on  his  knees,  watch- 
ing the  approach  of  death,  and  Weeping. 

The  old  man  died  in  his  chair,  in  the  presence  of  the  as- 
sembled family. 

"I  die  faithful  to  the  King  and  religion.  Great  God,  as 
the  reward  of  my  efforts,  let  Calyste  live  !  "  he  said. 

"I  Will  live,  father,  and  obey  you,"  replied  the  young 
man. 

"If  you  would  make  my  death  as  easy  as  Fanny  has  made 
my  life,  swear  that  yOu  will  marry." 

"  I  promise  it,  father." 

It  Was  touching  to  see  Calyste,  or  rather  his  ghost,  leaning 
on  the  old  chevalier,  a  spectre  leading  a  shade,  following  the 
Baron's  bier  as  chief  mourner.  The  church  and  the  little 
square  before  the  porch  were  full  of  people,  who  had  come 
from  ten  leagues  round. 

The  Baroness  and  Zephirine  were  deeply  grieved  when 
they  saw  that,  in  spite  of  his  efforts  to  obey  his  father, 
Calyste  \vas  still  sunk  in  an  ominous  stupor.  On  the  first  day 
of  their  mourning  the  Baroness  led  her  son  to  the  seat  at  the 
bottom  of  the  garden,  and  questioned  him.  Calyste  replied 
with  gentle  submissiveness,  but  his  answers  were  heartbreak- 
ing. 

"Mother,"  said  he,  fi  there  is  no  life  left  in  hie;  what  I 
eat  does  not  nourish  me,  the  air  I  breathe  into  my  lungs  does 
not  renew  my  blood  ;  the  sun  seems  cold  to  me,  and  when  it 
shines  for  you  on  the  front  of  the  house  as  at  this  moment, 
where  you  see  carvings  bathed  in  light  I  see  dim  forms 
wrapped  in  mist.  If  Beatrix  were  here,  all  would  be  bright 
once  more.  There  is  but  one  thing  in  the  world  that  has  her 
color  and  form — this  flower  and  these  leaves,"  and  he  drew 


236  BE  A  TRIX. 

out  of  his  bosom  the  withered  blossoms  that  the  Marquise 
had  given  him. 

The  Baroness  dared  ask  him  no  more  ;  the  madness  be- 
trayed by  his  replies  seemed  worse  than  the  sorrow  of  his 
silence. 

But  Calyste  was  thrilled  as  he  caught  sight  of  Mademoiselle 
des  Touches  through  the  windows  at  opposite  ends  of  the 
room.  Felicite  reminded  him  of  Beatrix.  Thus  it  was  to 
her  that  the  two  women  owed  the  one  gleam  of  joy  that 
lightened  their  griefs. 

"Well,  Calyste,"  said  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  when 
she  saw  him,  "  the  carriage  is  ready ;  we  will  go  together  and 
find  Beatrix.     Come." 

The  pale,  thin  face  of  the  boy,  all  in  black,  was  brightened 
by  a  flush,  and  a  smile  dawned  on  his  features. 

"We  will  save  him  !  "  said  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  to 
the  mother,  who  wrung  her  hand,  shedding  tears  of  joy. 

A  week  after  the  Baron's  death,  Mademoiselle  des  Touches, 
the  Baronne  du  Guenic,  and  Calyste  set  out  for  Paris,  leaving 
the  business  matters  in  the  hands  of  old  mademoiselle. 

Felicite' s  affection  for  Calyste  had  planned  a  brilliant  future 
for  the  poor  boy.  She  was  connected  with  the  Grandlieus, 
and  the  ducal  branch  was  ending  in  a  family  of  five  daughters. 
She  had  written  to  the  Duchesse  de  Grandlieu,  telling  her  the 
whole  story  of  Calyste,  and  announcing  her  intention  of  sell- 
ing her  house  in  the  Rue  du  Mont-Blanc,  for  which  a  com- 
pany of  speculators  had  offered  two  million  five  hundred 
thousand  francs.  Her  business  manager  had  already  bought 
for  her  one  of  the  finest  houses  in  the  Rue  de  Bourbon,  at  a 
cost  of  seven  hundred  thousand  francs.  Out  of  the  surplus 
money  from  the  sale  of  the  house  in  the  Rue  Mont-Blanc  she 
meant  to  devote  one  million  to  repurchasing  the  estates  of  the 
du  Guenics,  and  would  leave  the  rest  of  her  fortune  among 
the  five  de  Grandlieu  girls, 


BE  A  TRIX.  237 

Felicite  knew  the  plans  made  by  the  Duke  and  Duchess, 
who  intended  that  their  youngest  daughter  should  marry  the 
Vicomte  de  Grandlieu,  the  heir  to  their  titles ;  Clotilde-Fred- 
erique,  the  second,  meant,  she  knew,  to  remain  unmarried, 
without  taking  the  veil,  however,  as  her  eldest  sister  had  done ; 
so  the  only  one  to  be  disposed  of  was  Sabine,  a  pretty  creature 
just  twenty  years  of  age,  on  whom  she  counted  to  cure  Calyst s 
of  his  passion  for  Madame  de  Rochefide. 

During  their  journey  Felicite  told  Madame  du  Guenic  of 
all  these  plans.  The  house  in  the  Rue  de  Bourbon  was  now 
being  furnished,  and  in  it  Calyste  was  to  live  if  these  schemes 
should  succeed. 

They  all  three  went  straight  to  the  Hotel  Grandlieu,  where 
the  Baroness  was  received  with  all  the  respect  due  to  her 
name  as  a  girl  and  as  a  wife.  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  of 
course,  advised  Calyste  to  see  all  he  could  of  Paris  while  she 
made  inquiries  as  to  where  Beatrix  might  be,  and  she  left  him 
to  the  fascinations  of  every  kind  which  awaited  him  there. 
The  Duchess,  her  daughters,  and  their  friends  did  the  honors 
of  the  capital  for  Calyste  just  at  the  season  when  it  was  begin- 
ning to  be  gayest. 

The  bustle  of  Paris  entirely  diverted  the  young  Breton's 
mind.  He  fancied  there  was  some  likeness  in  the  minds  of 
Madame  de  Rochefide  and  Sabine  de  Grandlieu,  who  at  that 
time  was  certainly  one  of  the  loveliest  and  most  charming 
girls  in  Paris  society,  and  he  thenceforward  paid  an  amount 
of  attention  to  her  advances  which  no  other  woman  would 
have  won  from  him.  Sabine  de  Grandlieu  played  her  part 
all  the  more  successfully  because  she  liked  Calyste. 

Matters  were  so  skillfully  managed  that,  in  the  course  of  the 
winter  of  1837,  the  young  Baron,  who  had  recovered  his  color 
and  youthful  beauty,  could  listen  without  disgust  when  his 
mother  reminded  him  of  his  promise  to  his  dying  father,  and 
spoke  of  his  marrying  Sabine  de  Grandlieu.  Still,  while 
keeping  his  promise,  he  concealed  an  indifference  which  the 

V 


238  BE  A  TRIX. 

Baroness  could  discern,  while  she  hoped  it  might  be  dispelled 
by  the  satisfactions  of  a  happy  home. 

On  the  day  when  the  Grandlieu  family  and  the  Baroness, 
supported  on  this  occasion  by  her  relations  from  England, 
held  a  sitting  in  the  large  drawing-room  of  the  Duke's  house, 
while  Leopold  Hannequin,  the  family  notary,  explained  the 
conditions  of  the  marriage-contract  before  reading  it  through, 
Calyste,  whose  brow  was  clouded,  as  all  could  see,  refused  point- 
blank  to  accept  the  benefactions  offered  to  him  by  Made- 
moiselle des  Touches.  He  still  trusted  to  Felicite's  devotion 
and  believed  that  she  was  seeking  Beatrix. 

At  this  moment,  in  the  midst  of  the  dismay  of  both 
families,  Sabine  came  in,  dressed  so  as  to  remind  Calyste  of 
the  Marquise  de  Rochefide,  though  her  complexion  was  dark, 
and  she  placed  in  Calyste' s  hand  the  following  letter : 

Camille  to  Calyste. 

"  Calyste,  before  retiring  into  my  cell  as  a  novice,  I  may 
be  allowed  to  glance  back  at  the  world  I  am  quitting  to  enter 
the  world  of  prayer.  This  glance  is  solely  for  you,  who  in 
these  later  days  have  been  all  the  world  to  me.  My  voice  will 
reach  you,  if  I  have  calculated  exactly,  in  the  middle  of  a 
ceremony  which  I  could  not  possibly  witness.  On  the  day 
when  you  stand  before  the  altar,  to  give  your  hand  to  a  young 
and  lovely  girl  who  is  free  to  love  before  heaven  and  the 
world,  I  shall  be  in  a  religious  house  at  Nantes — before  the 
altar  too,  but  plighted  for  ever  to  Him  who  can  never  deceive 
nor  disappoint. 

"  I  write,  not  to  sadden  you,  but  to  beseech  you  not  to 
allow  any  false  delicacy  to  hinder  the  good  I  have  always 
wished  to  do  you  since  our  first  meeting.  Do  not  deny  the 
right  I  have  so  hardly  earned.  If  love  is  suffering,  then  I 
have  loved  you  well,  Calyste;  but  you  need  feel  no  remorse. 
The  only  pleasures  I  have  known  in  my  life  I  owe  to  you,  and 


BE  A  TRIX.  239 

the  pain  has  come  from  myself.  Compensate  me  for  all  this 
past  suffering  by  giving  me  one  eternal  joy.  Let  me,  dear, 
be  in  some  sort  a  perfume  in  the  flowers  of  your  life,  and 
mingle  with  it  always  without  being  importunate.  I  shall 
certainly  owe  to  you  my  happiness  in  life  eternal ;  will  you 
not  let  me  pay  my  debt  by  the  offering  of  some  transient  and 
perishable  possessions?  You  will  not  fail  in  generosity? 
You  will  not  regard  this  as  the  last  subterfuge  of  scorned 
love  ? 

"  Calyste,  the  world  was  nothing  to  me  without  you;  you 
made  it  a  fearful  desert,  and  you  have  led  the  infidel  Camille 
Maupin,  the  writer  of  books  and  dramas,  which  I  shall 
solemnly  disown — you  have  led  that  audacious  and  perverted 
woman,  tied  hand  and  foot,  to  the  throne  of  God.  I  am 
now,  what  I  ought  always  to  have  been,  an  innocent  child. 
Yes,  I  have  washed  my  robes  in  the  tears  of  repentance,  and 
I  may  go  to  the  altar  presented  by  an  angel — by  my  dearly 
loved  Calyste  !  How  sweet  it  is  to  call  you  so — now  that  my 
resolution  has  sanctified  the  word.  I  love  you  without  self- 
interest,  as  a  mother  loves  her  son,  as  the  church  loves  her 
children.  I  can  pray  for  you  and  yours  without  the  infusion 
of  a  single  desire  but  that  for  your  happiness. 

"If  you  knew  the •  supreme  peace  in  which  I  live  after 
having  lifted  myself  by  thought  above  the  petty  interests  of 
the  world,  and  how  exquisite  is  the  feeling  of  having  done 
one's  duty,  in  accordance  with  your  noble  motto,  you  would 
enter  on  your  happy  life  with  a  firm  step,  nor  glance  behind 
nor  around  you.  So  I  am  writing  to  beseech  you  to  be  true 
to  yourself  and  to  your  family. 

"My  dear,  the  society  in  which  you  must  live  cannot  exist 
without  the  religion  of  duty  ;  and  you  will  misunderstand  life, 
as  I  have  misunderstood  it,  if  you  give  yourself  up  to  passion 
and  to  fancy  as  I  have  done.  Woman  can  only  be  equal  with 
man  by  making  her  life  a  perpetual  sacrifice,  as  man's  must  be 
perpetual  action.     Now  my  life  has  been,  as  it  were,  one  long 


240  BEATRIX. 

outbreak  of  egoism.  God,  perhaps,  brought  you  in  its  evening 
to  my  door,  as  a  messenger  charged  with  my  punishment  and 
pardon.  Remember  this  confession  from  a  woman  to  whom 
fame  was  a  pharos  whose  light  showed  her  the  right  way.  Be 
great !  sacrifice  your  fancy  to  your  duties  as  the  head  of  a 
house,  as  husband  and  father.  Raise  the  downtrodden  banner 
of  the  old  du  Guenics;  show  the  present  age,  when  principles 
and  religion  are  denied*  what  a  gentleman  may  be  in  all  his 
glory  and  distinction. 

"Dear  child  of  my  soul,  let  me  play  the  mother  a  little : 
the  angelic  Fanny  will  not  be  jealous  of  a  woman  dead  to  the 
world,  of  whom  you  will  henceforth  know  nothing  but  that 
her  hands  are  always  raised  to  heaven.  In  these  days  the  no- 
bility need  fortune  more  than  ever,  so  accept  a  part  of  mine, 
dear  Calyste,  and  make  a  good  use  of  it.  It  is  not  a  gift ;  it 
is  trust-money.  I  am  thinking  more  of  your  children  and 
your  old  Breton  estate  than  of  yourself  when  I  offer  you  the 
interest  which  time  has  accumulated  for  me  on  my  Paris 
property." 

"I  am  ready  to  sign,"  said  the  young  Baron,  to  the  great 
delight  of  the  assembly. 


PART  III. 


RETROSPECTIVE   ADULTERY. 


The  week  after  this,  when  the  marriage  service  had  been 
celebrated  at  Saint-Thomas  d'Aquin,  at  seven  in  the  morning, 
as  was  the  custom  in  some  families  of  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Germain— Calyste  and  Sabine  got  into  a  neat  traveling-car- 
riage in  the  midst  of  the  embracing,  congratulations,  and  tears 
of  a  score  of  persons  gathered  in  groups  under  the  awning  of 
the  Hotel  de  Grandlieu.  The  congratulations  were  offered 
by  the  witnesses  and  the  men  ;  the  tears  were  to  be  seen  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Duchesse  de  Grandlieu  and  her  daughter  Clo- 
tilde — both  tremulous,  and  from  the  same  reflection. 

"  Poor  Sabine  !  she  is  starting  in  life  at  the  mercy  of  a  man 
who  is  married  not  altogether  willingly." 

Marriage  does  not  consist  solely  of  pleasures,  which  are  as 
fugitive  under  those  conditions  as  under  any  others ;  it  in- 
volves a  consonance  of  tempers  and  physical  sympathies,  a 
concord  of  character,  which  make  this  social  necessity  an  ever- 
new  problem.  Girls  to  be  married  know  the  conditions  and 
dangers  of  this  lottery  fully  as  well  as  their  mothers  do ;  this 
is  why  women  shed  tears  as  they  look  on  at  a  marriage,  while 
men  smile ;  the  men  think  they  risk  nothing ;  the  women 
know  pretty  well  how  much  they  risk. 

In  another  carriage,  which  had  started  first,  was  the  Baronne 
du  Guenic,  to  whom  the  Duchess  had  said  at  parting — 

"You  are  a  mother  though  you  have  only  a  son.  Try  to 
fill  my  place  to  my  darling  Sabine." 

On  the  box  of  that  carriage  sat  a  groom,  serving  as  a  courier, 

and  behind  it  two  ladies'-maids.     The  four   postillions,   in 

splendid  liveries — each  carriage  having  four  horses — all  had 

nosegays  in  their  button-holes  and  favors  in  their  hats.     The 

16  (241) 


242  BE  A  TRIX. 

Due  de  Grandlieu,  even  by  paying  them,  had  the  greatest  dif- 
ficulty in  persuading  them  to  remove  the  ribbons.  The 
French  postillion  is  eminently  intelligent,  but  he  loves  his 
joke ;  and  these  took  the  money  and  replaced  the  favors  out- 
side the  city  walls. 

"  Well,  well,  good-by,  Sabine  !  "  said  the  Duchess.  "  Re- 
member your  promise,  and  write  often.  Calyste,  I  say  no 
more,  but  you  understand  me." 

Clotilde,  leaning  on  the  arm  of  her  youngest  sister  Athenai's, 
who  was  smiling  at  the  Vicomte  Juste  de  Grandlieu,  gave  the 
bride  a  keen  glance  through  her  tears  and  watched  the  carriage 
till  it  disappeared  amid  the  repeated  salvoes  of  four  postillions' 
whips,  noisier  than  pistol-shots.  In  a  very  short  time  the  gay 
procession  reached  the  Esplanade  of  the  Invalides,  followed 
the  quay  to  the  Pont  d'lena,  the  Passy  Gate,  the  Versailles 
avenue,  and,  finally,  the  high-road  to  Brittany. 

Is  it  not  strange,  to  say  the  least,  that  the  artisan  class  of 
Switzerland  and  Germany,  and  the  greatest  families  of  France 
and  England,  obey  the  same  custom,  and  start  on  a  journey 
after  the  nuptial  ceremony  ?  The  rich  pack  themselves  into 
a  box  on  wheels.  The  poor  walk  gayly  along  the  roads,  resting 
in  the  woods,  feeding  at  every  inn,  so  long  as  their  glee,  or 
rather  their  money,  holds  out.  A  moralist  would  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  decide  which  is  the  finest  flower  of  modesty — that 
which  hides  from  the  public  eye,  inaugurating  the  domestic 
hearth  and  bed  as  the  worthy  citizen  does,  or  that  which  flies 
from  the  family  and  displays  itself  in  the  fierce  light  of  the 
high-road  to  the  eyes  of  strangers?  Refined  natures  must 
crave  for  solitude,  and  avoid  the  world  and  the  family  alike. 
The  rush  of  love  that  begins  a  marriage  is  a  diamond,  a  pearl, 
a  gem  cut  by  the  highest  of  all  arts,  a  treasure  to  be  buried 
deep  in  the  heart. 

Who  could  tell  the  tale  of  a  honeymoon  except  the  bride? 
And  how  many  women  would  here  admit  that  this  period  of 
uncertain  duration — sometimes  of  only  a  single  night — is  the 


BEATRIX.  243 

preface  to  married  life?  Sabine's  first  three  letters  to  her 
mother  betrayed  a  state  of  things  which,  unfortunately,  will 
not  seem  new  to  some  young  wives,  nor  to  many  old  women. 
All  who  have  become  sick-nurses,  so  to  speak,  to  a  man's 
heart  have  not  found  it  out  so  quickly  as  Sabine  did.  But 
the  girls  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  when  they  are  keen- 
witted, are  women  already  in  mind.  Before  marriage  they 
have  received  the  baptism  of  fine  manners  from  the  world  and 
from  their  mothers.  Duchesses,  anxious  to  perpetuate  the 
tradition,  are  often  unaware  of  all  the  bearings  of  their  les- 
sons when  they  say  to  their  daughters — "  No  one  ever  does 
that."  "Do  not  laugh  at  such  things."  "  You  must  never 
fling  yourself  on  a  sofa,  you  must  sit  down  quietly."  "  Never 
do  such  a  thing  again."  "It  is  most  incorrect,  my  dear!  " 
and  so  forth. 

And  critical  middle-class  folk  refuse  to  recognize  any  inno- 
cence or  virtue  in  young  creatures  who,  like  Sabine,  are  virgin 
souls,  but  perfected  by  cleverness,  by  the  habits  of  good  style, 
and  good  taste,  knowing  from  the  age  of  sixteen  how  to  use 
an  opera-glass.  Sabine,  to  lend  herself  to  Mademoiselle  des 
Touches'  schemes  for  her  marriage,  could  not  but  be  of  the 
school  of  Mademoiselle  de  Chaulieu.  This  innate  mother-wit, 
these  gifts  of  birth,  may  perhaps  make  this  young  wife  as  in- 
teresting as  the  heroine  of  the  "  Memoires  de  deux  jeunes 
Mariees  "  (Letters  of  Two  Brides),  in  which  we  see  the  vanity 
of  such  social  advantages  in  the  great  crises  of  married  life, 
where  they  are  often  crushed  under  the  double  weight  of  un- 
happiness  and  passion. 


To  Madame  la  Duchesse  de   Grandlieu. 

Guerande,  April,  1838. 

"  Dear  Mother  : — You  can  easily  understand  why  I  did 
not  write  to  you  on  the  journey;  one's  mind  turns  like  the 


244  BEATRIX. 

wheels.  So  here  I  have  been  these  two  days  in  the  depths  of 
Brittany,  at  the  Hotel  du  Guenic,  a  house  carved  all  over  like 
a  cocoanut-box.  Notwithstanding  the  affectionate  attentions 
of  Calyste's  family,  I  feel  an  eager  longing  to  fly  away  to 
you  and  tell  you  a  thousand  things  which  I  feel  can  only  be 
told  to  a  mother. 

"  Dear  mamma,  Calyste  married  me  cherishing  a  great  sor- 
sow  in  his  soul ;  we  all  of  us  knew  it,  and  you  did  not  disguise 
the  difficulties  of  my  position  ;  but,  alas  !  they  are  greater 
than  you  imagined.  Oh,  dear  mamma,  how  much  experience 
we  may  acquire  in  a  few  days — why  should  I  not  say  to  you  in 
a  few  hours  ?  All  your  counsels  proved  useless,  and  you  will 
understand  why  by  this .  simple  fact :  I  love  Calyste  as  if  he 
were  not  my  husband.  That  is  to  say,  if  I  were  married  to 
another  man  and  were  traveling  with  Calyste,  I  should  love 
him  and  hate  my  husband.  Consider  him,  then,  as  a  man 
loved  entirely,  involuntarily,  absolutely,  and  as  many  more 
adverbs  as  you  choose  to  supply.  So,  in  spite  of  your  warn- 
ings, my  slavery  is  an  established  fact. 

"  You  advised  me  to  keep  myself  lofty,  haughty,  dignified, 
and  proud,  in  order  to  bring  Calyste  to  a  state  of  feeling 
which  should  never  undergo  any  change  throughout  life ;  in 
the  esteem  and  respect  which  must  sanctify  the  wife  in  the 
home  and  family.  You  spoke  warmly,  and  with  reason,  no 
doubt,  against  the  young  women  of  the  day  who,  under  the 
excuse  of  living  on  good  terms  with  their  husbands,  begin  by 
being  docile,  obliging,  submissive,  with  a  familiarity,  a  free- 
and-easiness  which  are,  in  your  opinion,  rather  too  cheap — a 
word  I  own  to  not  understanding  yet,  but  we  shall  see  by- 
and-by — and  which,  if  you  are  right,  are  only  the  early  and 
rapid  stages  toward  indifference  and,  perhaps,  contempt. 

"'Remember  that  you  are  a  Grandlieu,'  you  said  in  my 
ear. 

"  This  advice,  full  of  the  maternal  eloquence  of  Dedalus, 
has  shared  the  fate  of  mythological  things.     Dear,  darling 


BEA  TRIX.  245 

mother,  could  you  believe  that  I  should  begin  by  the  catas- 
trophe which,  according  to  you,  closes  the  honeymoon  of  the 
young  wives  of  our  day  ? 

"  When  Calyste  and  I  were  alone  in  the  carriage,  each 
thought  the  other  as  silly  as  himself,  as  we  both  perceived  the 
importance  of  the  first  word,  the  first  look  ;  and  each,  bewil- 
dered by  the  marriage  sacrament,  sat  looking  out  of  a  window. 
It  was  so  preposterous  that,  as  we  got  near  the  city  gate, 
monsieur  made  me  a  little  speech  in  a  rather  broken  voice — a 
speech  prepared,  no  doubt,  like  all  extempore  efforts,  to 
which  I  listened  with  a  beating  heart,  and  which  I  take  the 
liberty  of  epitomizing  for  your  benefit. 

"'My  dear  Sabine,'  said  he,  'I  wish  you  to  be  happy, 
and,  above  all,  to  be  happy  in  your  own  way,'  he  added.  'In 
our  position,  instead  of  deceiving  each  other  as  to  our  charac- 
ters and  sentiments,  by  magnanimous  concessions,  let  us  both 
be  now  what  we  should  be  a  few  years  hence.  Regard  me  as 
being  your  brother,  as  I  would  wish  to  find  a  sister  in  you.' 

"  Though  this  was  most  delicately  meant,  I  did  not  find  in 
this  first  speech  of  married  love  anything  answering  to  the 
eagerness  of  my  soul,  and,  after  replying  that  I  felt  quite  as 
he  did,  I  remained  pensive.  After  this  declaration  of  rights 
to  be  equally  cold,  we  talked  of  the  weather,  the  dust,  the 
houses,  and  the  scenery  with  the  most  gracious  politeness,  I 
laughing  a  rather  forced  laugh,  he  lost  in  dreams. 

"  Finally,  as  we  left  Versailles,  I  asked  Calyste  point-blank 
— calling  him  '  my  dear  Calyste,'  as  he  called  me  '  my  dear 
Sabine ' — if  he  could  tell  me  the  history  of  the  events  which 
had  brought  him  to  death's  door,  and  to  which  I  owed  the 
honor  of  being  his  wife.  He  hesitated  for  a  long  time.  In 
fact,  it  was  the  subject  of  a  little  discussion  lasting  through 
three  stages ;  I  trying  to  play  the  part  of  a  willful  girl  deter- 
mined to  sulk;  he  debating  with  himself  on  the  ominous 
question  asked  as  a  challenge  to  Charles  X.  by  the  public 
press  :   '  Will  the  King  give  in  ?  '     At  last,  when  we  had  left 


246  BEATRIX. 

Verneuil,  and  after  swearing  often  enough  to  satisfy  three 
dynasties  that  I  would  never  remind  him  of  his  folly,  never 
treat  him  coldly,  and  so  on,  he  painted  his  passion  for 
Madame  de  Rochefade  :  '  I  do  not  wish,'  he  said,  in  conclu- 
sion, '  that  there  should  be  any  secrets  between  us.' 

'*  Poor  dear  Calyste  did  not  know,  I  suppose,  that  his  friend 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches  and  you  had  been  obliged  to  tell 
me  all ;  for  a  girl  cannot  be  dressed  as  I  was  on  the  day  of 
the  contract  without  being  taught  her  part. 

"  I  cannot  but  tell  everything  to  so  good  a  mother  as  you 
are.  Well,  then,  I  was  deeply  hurt  at  seeing  that  he  had 
yielded  far  less  to  my  request  than  to  his  own  wish  to  talk 
about  the  unknown  object  of  his  passion.  Will  you  blame 
me,  dearest  mother,  for  having  wanted  to  know  the  extent  of 
this  sorrow,  of  the  aching  wound  in  his  heart  of  which  you 
had  told  me? 

"Thus,  within  eight  hours  of  having  been  blessed  by  the 
cure  of  Saint-Thomas  d'Aquin,  your  Sabine  found  herself  in 
the  rather  false  position  of  a  young  wife  hearing  from  her 
husband's  own  lips  his  confidences  as  to  a  cheated  passion 
and  the  misdeeds  of  a  rival.  Yes,  I  was  playing  a  part  in  the 
drama  of  a  young  wife,  officially  informed  that  she  owed  her 
marriage  to  the  disdain  of  an  old  beauty  ! 

"  By  this  narrative  I  gained  what  I  sought.  '  What  ?  '  you 
will  ask.  Oh,  my  dear  mother  !  on  clocks  and  chimney  carv- 
ings I  have  often  enough  seen  Loves  leading  each  other  on, 
hand  in  hand,  to  put  the  lesson  into  practice  !  Calyste  ended 
the  romance  of  his  memories  with  the  most  vehement  protes- 
tations that  he  had  entirely  gotten  over  what  he  called  his  mad- 
ness. Every  protest  needs  a  signature.  The  happy  hapless 
one  took  my  hand,  pressed  it  to  his  lips,  and  then  held  it  for 
a  long  time.  A  declaration  followed.  This  one  seemed  to 
me  more  suitable  than  the  first  to  our  position  as  man  and 
wife,  though  our  lips' did  not  utter  a  single  word.  This  hap- 
piness I  owed  to  my  spirited  indignation  against  the  bad  taste 


BEATRIX.  247 

of  a  woman  so  stupid  as  not  to  love  my  handsome  and  delight- 
ful Calyste. 

"  I  am  called  away  to  play  a  game  of  cards,  which  I  have 
not  yet  mastered.  I  will  continue  my  letter  to-morrow.  That 
I  should  have  to  leave  you  just  now  to  make  the  fifth  at  a 
game  of  mouche  /  Such  a  thing  is  impossible  anywhere  but  in 
the  depths  of  Brittany. 

"May. 

"  I  resume  the  tale  of  my  Odyssey.  By  the  third  day  your 
children  had  dropped  the  ceremonial  vous  (you)  and  adopted 
the  loverlike  tu  (thou).  My  mother-in-law,  delighted  to  see 
us  happy,  tried  to  fill  your  place,  dearest  mother;  and,  as  is 
always  the  case  with  those  who  take  a  part  with  the  idea  of 
effacing  past  impressions,  she  is  so  delightful  that  she  has  been 
almost  as  much  to  me  as  you  could  be.  She,  no  doubt, 
guessed  how  heroic  my  conduct  was ;  at  the  beginning  of  our 
journey  she  hid  her  anxiety  too  carefully  not  to  betray  it  by 
her  excessive  precautions. 

"  When  I  caught  sight  of  the  towers  of  Guerande  I  said  in 
your  son-in-law's  ear,  '  Have  you  quite  forgotten  her? ' 

"And  my  husband,  now  my  angel,  had  perhaps  never 
known  the  depth  of  an  artless  and  genuine  affection,  for  that 
little  speech  made  him  almost  crazy  with  joy. 

"Unluckily  my  desire  to  make  him  forget  Madame  de 
Rochefide  led  me  too  far.  How  could  I  help  it !  I  love  him, 
and  I  am  almost  Portuguese,  for  I  am  like  you  rather  than  my 
father.  Calyste  accepted  everything,  as  spoilt  children  do ; 
he  is  above  everything  an  only  son.  Between  you  and  me,  I 
will  never  let  my  daughter — -if  I  ever  should  have  a  daughter — 
marry  an  only  son.  It  is  quite  enough  to  have  to  manage  one 
tyrant,  and  in  an  only  son  there  are  several.  And  so  we 
exchanged  parts;  I  played  the  devoted  wife.  There  are 
dangers  in  self-devotion  to  gain  an  end  ;  it  is  loss  of  dignity. 
So  I  have  to  announce  the  wreck  in  me  of  that  semi-virtue; 


248  BEATRIX. 

dignity  is  really  no  more  than  a  screen  set  up  by  pride,  behind 
which  we  may  fume  at  our  ease.  How  could  I  help  myself, 
mamma;  you  were  not  here,  and  I  looked  into  a  gulf.  If  I 
had  maintained  my  dignity,  I  should  have  known  the  chill 
pangs  of  a  sort  of  brotherliness,  which  would  certainly  have 
become  simple  indifference.  And  what  future  would  have 
lain  before  me  ? 

"  As  a  result  of  my  devotion,  I  am  Calyste's  slave.  Shall 
I  get  out  of  that  position  ?  We  shall  see ;  for  the  present  I 
like  it.  I  love  Calyste — I  love  him  entirely  with  the  frenzy 
of  a  mother  who  thinks  everything  right  that  her  son  can  do, 
even  when  he  punishes  her  a  little. 

"May  15. 

"  So  far,  dear  mother,  marriage  has  come  to  me  in  a  most 
attractive  form.  I  lavish  all  my  tenderest  affection  on  the 
handsomest  of  men,  who  was  thrown  over  by  a  fool  for  the 
sake  of  a  wretched  singer — for  the  woman  is  evidently  a  fool, 
and  a  fool  in  cold  blood,  the  worst  sort  of  fool.  I  am  chari- 
table in  my  lawful  passion,  and  heal  his  scars  while  inflicting 
eternal  wounds  on  myself.  Yes,  for  the  more  I  love  Calyste, 
the  more  I  feel  that  I  should  die  of  grief  if  anything  put  an 
end  to  our  present  happiness.  And  I  am  worshiped,  too,  by 
all  the  family,  and  by  the  little  company  that  meets  at  the 
Hotel  du  Guenic,  all  of  them  born  figures  in  some  ancient 
tapestry,  and  having  stepped  out  of  it  to  show  that  the  im- 
possible can  exist.  One  day  when  I  am  alone  I  will  describe 
them  to  you — Aunt  Zephirine,  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel, 
the  Chevalier  du  Halga,  the  Demoiselles  de  Kergarouet,  and 
the  rest,  down  to  the  two  servants,  whom  I  shall  be  allowed, 
I  hope,  to  take  to  Paris — Mariotte  and  Gasselin,  who  regard 
me  as  an  angel  alighted  on  earth  from  heaven,  and  who  are 
still  startled  when  I  speak  to  them — they  are  all  figures  to  put 
under  glass  shades. 

"  My  mother-in-law  solemnly  installed  us  in  the  rooms  she 


BEATRIX.  24d 

and  her  deceased  husband  had  formerly  inhabited.  The 
scene  was  a  touching  one.  '  I  lived  all  my  married  life  here,' 
said  she,  '  quite  happy.  May  that  be  a  happy  omen  for  you, 
my  dear  children  !  '  And  she  has  taken  Calyste's  room. 
The  saintly  woman  seemed  to  wish  to  divest  herself  of  her 
memories  and  her  admirable  life  as  a  wife  to  endow  us  with 
them. 

"The  Province  of  Brittany,  this  town,  this  family  with  its 
antique  manners — the  whole  thing,  in  spite  of  the  absurdities, 
which  are  invisible  to  any  but  a  mocking  Parisian  woman,  has 
something  indescribably  grandiose,  even  in  its  details,  to  be 
expressed  only  by  the  word  sacred.  The  tenants  of  the  vast 
estates  of  the  du  Guenics,  repurchased,  as  you  know,  by 
Mademoiselle  des  Touches — whom  we  are  to  visit  in  the  con- 
vent— all  came  out  to  receive  us.  These  good  folk  in  their 
holiday  dresses,  expressing  the  greatest  joy  at  greeting  Calyste 
as  really  their  master  once  more,  made  me  understand  what 
Brittany  is,  and  feudality,  and  old  France.  It  was  a  festival 
I  will  not  write  about ;  I  will  tell  you  when  we  meet.  The 
terms  of  all  the  leases  have  been  proposed  by  the  tenants 
themselves,  and  we  are  to  sign  after  the  tour  of  inspection  we 
are  to  make  round  our  lands  that  have  been  pledged  this 
century  and  a  half.  Mademoiselle  de  Pen-Hoel  tells  us  that 
these  yeomen  have  assessed  the  returns  with  an  accuracy  that 
Paris  folk  would  not  believe  in.  We  are  to  start  three  days 
hence  and  ride  everywhere. 

"On  my  return  I  will  write  again,  dear  mother;  but  what 
?  can  I  have  to  say  to  you,  since  my  happiness  is  already  com- 
plete ?     So  I  must  write  what  you  know  already,  namely,  how 
much  I  love  you." 


260  BEATRIX. 

II. 

From  the  same  to  the  same. 

"  Nantes,  June. 

"After  playing  the  part  of  the  Lady  of  the  Castle,  wor- 
shiped by  her  vassals  as  though  the  revolutions  of  1830  and 
1789  had  never  torn  down  our  banners;  after  riding  through 
woods,  halting  at  farms,  dining  at  old  tables  spread  with 
cloths  a  century  old,  and  groaning  under  Homeric  dishes 
served  in  antediluvian  plate;  after  drinking  delicious  wine 
out  of  goblets  like  those  we  see  in  the  hands  of  conjurers ; 
after  salvoes  fired  at  dessert,  and  deafening  shouts  of  '  Vive 
les  du  Guenics  !  '  and  balls,  where  the  orchestra  is  a  bagpipe, 
which  a  man  blows  at  for  ten  hours  on  end  !  and  such  bou- 
quets !  and  brides  who  insist  on  having  our  blessing !  and 
healthy  fatigue,  cured  by  such  sleep  as  I  had  never  known, 
and  a  delicious  waking  to  love  as  radiant  as  the  sun  that 
shines  above  us,  twinkling  on  a  myriad  insects  that  hum  in 
genuine  Bretagne  !  Finally,  after  a  grotesque  visit  to  the  Cas- 
tle of  du  Guenic,  where  the  windows  are  open  gates,  and  the 
cows  might  pasture  on  the  grass  grown  in  the  halls ;  but  we 
have  vowed  to  restore  it,  and  furnish  it,  so  as  to  come  here 
every  year  and  be  hailed  by  the  vassals  of  the  clan,  one  of 
whom  carried  our  banner.     Ouf !  here  I  am  at  Nantes. 

"  What  a  day  we  had  when  we  went  to  le  Guenic  !  The 
priest  and  all  the  clergy  came  out  to  meet  us,  all  crowned 
with  flowers,  mother,  and  blessed  us  with  such  joy  !  The 
tears  come  into  my  eyes  as  I  write  about  it.  And  my  lordly 
Calyste  played  his  part  as  a  liege  like  a  figure  of  Walter 
Scott's.  Monsieur  received  homage  as  if  we  had  stepped 
back  into  the  thirteenth  century.  I  heard  girls  and  women 
saying,  '  What  a  handsome  master  we  have  !  '  just  like  the 
chorus  of  a  comic  opera. 

"  The   old    folk   discussed    Calyste's    likeness    to   the   du 


BEATRIX.  251 

Guenics  whom  they  had  known.  Oh  !  Brittany  is  a  noble 
and  sublime  country,  a  land  of  faith  and  religion.  But  prog- 
ress has  an  eye  on  it ;  bridges  and  roads  are  to  be  made,  ideas 
will  invade  it,  and  farewell  to  the  sublime.  The  peasants 
will  certainly  cease  to  be  as  free  and  proud  as  I  saw  them 
when  it  has  been  proved  to  them  that  they  are  Calyste's 
equals,  if,  indeed,  they  can  be  brought  to  believe  it. 

"So  after  the  poetry  of  this  pacific  restoration,  when  we 
had  signed  the  leases  we  left  that  delightful  country,  flowery 
and  smiling,  gloomy  and  barren  by  turns,  and  we  came  here 
to  kneel  before  her,  to  whom  we  owe  our  good  fortune,  and 
give  her  thanks.  Calyste  and  I  both  felt  the  need  to  thank 
the  novice  of  the  visitation.  In  memory  of  her  he  will  bear 
on  his  shield  quarterly  the  arms  of  des  Touches :  party  per 
pale  engrailed  or  and  vert.  He  will  assume  one  of  the  silver 
eagles  as  a  supporter,  and  place  in  its  beak  the  pretty  womanly 
motto,  'Souviegne-vous.1  So  we  went  yesterday  to  the  Con- 
vent of  the  Ladies  of  the  Visitation,  conducted  by  the  Abbe 
Grimont,  a  friend  of  the  Guenic  family  ;  he  told  us  that  your 
beloved  Felicite,  dear  mamma,  is  a  saint;  indeed,  she  can  be 
no  less  to  him,  since  this  illustrious  conversion  has  led  to  his 
being  made  vicar-general  of  the  diocese.  Mademoiselle  des 
Touches  would  not  see  Calyste  ;  she  received  me  alone.  I 
found  her  a  little  altered,  paler  and  thinner ;  she  seemed  ex- 
tremely pleased  by  my  visit. 

"'Tell  Calyste,'  said  she  in  a  low  voice,  'that  my  not 
seeing  him  is  a  matter  of  conscience  and  self-discipline,  for  I 
have  permission  ;  but  I  would  rather  not  purchase  the  happi- 
ness of  a  few  minutes  with  months  of  suffering  !  Oh,  if  you 
could  only  know  how  difficult  I  find  it  to  answer  when  I  am 
asked,  "  What  are  you  thinking  about?"  The  mistress  of  the 
novices  can  never  understand  the  vastness  and  multiplicity  of 
\he  ideas  which  rush  through  my  brain  like  a  whirlwind. 
Sometimes  I  see  Italy  once  more,  or  Paris,  with  all  their  dis- 
play, always  with  Calyste,  who,'  she  said  with  the  poetic  turn 


252  BE  A  TRIX. 

you  know  so  well,  '  is  the  sun  of  my  memory.  I  was  too  old 
to  be  admitted  to  the  Carmelites,  so  I  chose  the  order  of 
Saint  Francis  de  Sales,  solely  because  he  said,  "I  will  have 
you  bareheaded  instead  of  barefoot  !  "  disapproving  of  such 
austerities  as  only  mortify  the  body.  In  fact,  the  head  is  the 
sinner.  The  holy  bishop  did  well  to  make  his  rule  stern  to 
the  brain  and  merciless  to  the  will  !  This  was  what  I  needed, 
for  my  mind  is  the  real  culprit ;  it  deceived  me  as  to  my  heart 
till  the  age  of  forty,  when,  though  we  are  sometimes  for  a 
moment  forty  times  happier  than  younger  women,  we  are  some- 
times fifty  times  more  wretched.  Well,  my  child,  and  are 
you  happy?  '  she  ended  by  asking  me,  evidently  glad  to  say 
no  more  about  herself. 

'-.'  'You  see  me  in  a  rapture  of  love  and  happiness,'  I  told 
her. 

"  '  Calyste  is  as  kind  and  genuine  as  he  is  noble  and  hand- 
some,' she  said  gravely.  'You  are  my  heiress;  you  have, 
beside  my  fortune,  the  twofold  ideal  of  which  I  dreamed.  I 
am  glad  of  what  I  have  done,'  she  added  after  a  pause. 
'  Now,  my  child,  do  not  be  blinded.  You  have  easily 
grasped  happiness,  you  had  only  to  put  out  your  hand  ;  now 
try  to  keep  it.  If  you  had  come  here  merely  to  carry  away 
the  advice  of  my  experience,  your  journey  would  be  well 
rewarded.  Calyste  at  this  moment  is  fired  by  an  infection  of 
passion  ;  you  did  not  inspire  it.  To  make  your  happiness 
durable,  dear  child,  strive  to  add  this  element  to  the  former 
one.  In  your  own  interest  and  your  husband's,  try  to  be 
capricious,  coy,  a  little  severe  if  necessary.  I  do  not  advise 
a  spirit  of  odious  calculation,  nor  tyranny,  but  the  science  of 
conduct.  Between  usury  and  extravagance  there  is  economy. 
Learn  to  acquire  a  certain  decent  control  of  your  husband. 

"  '  These  are  the  last  worldly  words  I  shall  ever  speak  ;  I 
have  been  waiting  to  say  them  to  you,  for  my  conscience 
quaked  at  the  notion  of  having  sacrificed  you  to  save  Calyste  ; 
attach  him  to  you,  give  him  children,  let  him  respect  you  as 


BE  A  TRIX.  253 

their  mother.  Finally,'  she  added  in  an  agitated  voice, 
'  manage  that  he  shall  never  see  Beatrix  again  !  ' 

"  This  name  was  enough  to  produce  a  sort  of  torpor  in  us 
both  ;  we  remained  looking  into  each  other's  eyes,  exchanging 
our  vague  sentiments  of  uneasiness. 

"  '  Are  you  going  home  to  Guerande  ?  '  she  asked. 

"  <  Yes,'  said  I. 

"  'Well,  never  go  to  les  Touches.  I  was  wrong  to  give 
you  the  place.' 

"'Why?' 

"  '  Child,  les  Touches  is  for  you  a  Bluebeard's  cupboard, 
for  there  is  nothing  so  dangerous  as  again  rousing  a  sleeping 
passion.' 

"I  have  given  you  the  substance  of  our  conversation,  my 
dear  mother.  If  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  made  me  talk, 
on  the  other  hand  she  gave  me  much  to  think  about — all  the 
more  because  in  the  excitement  of  our  travels,  and  my  happi- 
ness with  my  Calyste,  I  had  forgotten  the  serious  matter  of 
which  I  spoke  in  my  first  letter. 

"After  admiring  Nantes,  a  delightful  and  splendid  city; 
after  going  to  see,  in  the  Place  de  Bretagne,  the  spot  where 
Charette  so  nobly  fell,  we  arranged  to  return  to  Saint-Nazaire 
down  the  Loire,  since  we  had  already  gone  from  Nantes  to 
Guerande  by  the  road.  Public  traveling  is  an  invention  of 
the  modern  monster  the  Monopole.  Two  rather  pretty 
women  belonging  to  Nantes  were  behaving  rather  noisily  on 
deck,  suffering  evidently  from  Kergarouetism — a  jest  you  will 
understand  when  I  shall  have  told  you  what  the  Kergarouets 
are.  Calyste  behaved  very  well.  Like  a  true  gentleman,  he 
did  not  parade  me  as  his  wife.  Though  pleased  by  his  good 
taste,  like  a  child  with  his  first  drum,  I  thought  this  an  admir- 
able opportunity  for  practicing  the  system  recommended  by 
Camille  Maupin — for  it  was  certainly  not  the  novice  that  had 
spoken  to  me.  I  put  on  a  little  sulky  face,  and  Calyste  was 
Tery  flatteringly  distressed.     In  reply  to  his  question,  whis- 


254  BEATRIX. 

pered  in  my  ear,  '  What  is  the  matter  ? '  I  answered  the 
truth — 

"  '  Nothing  whatever.' 

1  *  And  I  could  judge  at  once  how  little  effect  the  truth  has 
in  the  first  instance.  Falsehood  is  a  decisive  weapon  in  cases 
where  rapidity  is  the  only  salvation  for  a  woman  or  an  empire. 
Calyste  became  very  urgent,  very  anxious.  I  led  him  to  the 
forepart  of  the  boat,  among  a  mass  of  ropes,  and  there,  in  a 
voice  full  of  alarms,  if  not  of  tears,  I  told  him  all  the  woes 
and  fears  of  a  woman  whose  husband  happens  to  be  the  hand- 
somest of  men. 

"  '  Oh,  Calyste  !  '  said  I,  '  there  is  one  dreadful  blot  on  our 
marriage.  You  did  not  love  me ;  you  did  not  choose  me  ! 
You  did  not  stand  fixed  like  a  statue  when  you  saw  me  for  the 
first  time.  My  heart,  my  attachment,  my  tenderness  cry  out 
to  you  for  affection,  and  some  day  you  will  punish  me  for 
having  been  the  first  to  offer  the  treasure  of  my  pure  and  in- 
voluntary girlish  love  !  I  ought  to  be  grudging  and  capri- 
cious, but  I  have  no  strength  for  it  against  you.  If  that  odious 
woman  who  scorned  you  had  been  in  my  place  now,  you 
would  not  even  have  seen  those  two  hideous  provincial  crea- 
tures who  would  be  classed  with  cattle  by  the  Paris  octroi.'* 

"  Calyste,  my  dear  mother,  had  tears  in  his  eyes,  and 
turned  away  to  hide  them  ;  he  saw  la  Basse  Indre,  and  ran  to 
desire  the  captain  to  put  us  on  shore.  No  one  can  hold  out 
against  such  a  response,  especially  as  it  was  followed  by  a  stay 
of  three  hours  in  a  little  country  inn,  where  we  breakfasted 
off  fresh  fish,  in  a  little  room  such  as  genre  painters  love, 
while  through  the  windows  came'  the  roar  of  the  ironworks  of 
Indret  across  the  broad  waters  of  the  Loire.  Seeing  the  happy 
result  of  the  experiments  of  experience,  I  exclaimed,  ?  Oh, 
sweet  Felicite  !  ' 

"  Calyste,  who  of  course  knew  nothing  of  the  advice  I  had 
received,  or  of  the  artfulness  of  my  behavior,  fell  into  a  de- 
*  Tax-collectors  at  the  city  gates. 


BEATRIX.  255 

lightful  punning  blunder  by  replying,  '  Never  let  us  forget  it ! 
We  will  send  an  artist  here  to  sketch  the  scene.' 

"I  laughed,  dear  mamma! — well,  I  laughed  until  Calyste 
was  quite  disconcerted  and  on  the  point  of  being  angry. 

"  '  Yes,'  said  I,  '  but  there  is  in  my  heart  a  picture  of  this 
landscape,  of  this  scene,  which  nothing  can  ever  efface,  and 
inimitable  in  its  color.' 

"Indeed,  mother,  I  find  it  impossible  to  give  my  love  the 
appearance  of  a  warfare  or  hostility.  Calyste  can  do  what  he 
likes  with  me.  That  tear  is,  I  believe,  the  first  he  ever  be- 
stowed on  me;  is  it  not  worth  more  than  a  second  declaration 
of  a  wife's  rights?  A  heartless  woman,  after  the  scene  on  the 
boat,  would  have  been  mistress  of  the  situation  ;  I  lost  all  I 
had  gained.  By  your  system,  the  more  I  am  a  wife,  the  more 
I  become  a  sort  of  harlot,  for  I  am  a  coward  in  happiness ;  I 
cannot  hold  out  against  a  glance  from  my  lord.  I  do  not 
abandon  myself  to  love ;  I  hug  it  as  a  mother  clasps  her  child 
to  her  breast  for  fear  of  some  harm." 


III. 

From  the  same  to  the  same. 

"July,  GUERANDE. 

"  Oh  !  my  dear  mother,  to  be  jealous  after  three  months 
of  married  life  !  My  heart  is  indeed  full.  I  feel  the  deepest 
hatred  and  the  deepest  love.  I  am  worse  than  deserted,  I 
am  not  loved  !  Happy  am  I  to  have  a  mother,  another  heart 
to  which  I  may  cry  at  my  ease. 

"  To  us  wives  who  are  still  to  some  extent  girls,  it  is  quite 
enough  to  be  told — '  Here,  among  the  keys  of  your  palace,  is 
one  all  rusty  with  remembrance  ;  go  where  you  will,  enjoy 
everything,  but  beware  of  visiting  les  Touches' — to  make  us 
rush  in  hot-foot,  our  eyes  full  of  Eve's  curiosity.  What  a 
provoking  element    Mademoiselle  des  Touches   had  infused 


256  BEATRIX. 

into  my  love  !  And  why  was  I  forbidden  les  Touches?  What ! 
does  such  happiness  as  mine  hang  on  an  excursion,  on  a  visit 
to  an  old  house  in  Brittany?  What  have  I  to  fear?  In  short, 
add  to  Mrs.  Bluebeard's  reasons  the  craving  that  gnaws  at 
every  woman's  heart  to  know  whether  her  power  is  precarious 
or  durable,  and  you  will  understand  why  one  day  I  asked, 
With  an  air  of  indifference — 

*  '  What  sort  of  place  is  les  Touches  ? ' 

"  '  Les  Touches  is  your  own,'  said  my  adorable  mother-in- 
law. 

"  '  Ah  !     If  only  Calyste  had  never  set  his  foot  there  ! ' 

said  Aunt  Zephirine,  shaking  her  head. 

"  '  He  would  not  now  be  my  husband,'  said  I. 

"  '  Then  you  know  what  happened  there  ? '  thus  my  mother- 
in-law,  sharply. 

** '  It  is  a  place  of  perdition,'  said  Mademoiselle  de  Pen- 
Hoel.  '  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  committed  many  sins 
there,  for  which  she  now  begs  forgiveness  of  God.' 

"'And  has  it  not  saved  that  noble  creature's  soul,  beside 
making  the  fortune  of  the  convent  ? '  cried  the  Chevalier  du 
Halga.  'The  Abbe  Grimont  tells  me  that  she  has  given  a 
hundred  thousand  francs  to  the  Ladies  of  the  Visitation.' 

"  '  Would  you  like  to  go  to  les  Touches  ?  '  said  the  Baroness. 
'  It  is  worth  seeing.' 

"  '  No,  no  !  '  cried  I,  eagerly. 

"  Now,  does  not  this  little  scene  strike  you  as  taken  from 
some  diabolical  drama?  And  it  was  repeated  under  a  hun- 
dred pretenses.     At  last  my  mother-in-law  said — 

"  '  I  understand  why  you  should  not  wish  to  go  to  les 
Touches.     You  are  quite  right.' 

"  Confess,  dear  mamma,  that  such  a  stab,  so  unintentionally 
given,  would  have  made  you  determine  that  you  must  know 
whether  your  happiness  really  rested  on  so  frail  a  basis  that  it 
must  perish  under  one  particular  roof?  I  must  do  this  justice 
to  Calyste,  he  had  never  proposed  to  visit  this  retreat  which 


BEATRIX.  257 

is  now  his  property.     Certainly  when  we  love,  we  become 
bereft  of  our  senses,  for  his  silence  and  reserve  nettled  me, 
till  I  said  one  day,   '  What  are  you  afraid  of  seeing  at  les 
Touches  that  you  never  mention  it  even  ? ' 
"  '  Let  us  go  there,'  said  he. 

"  I  was  caught,  as  every  woman  is  who  wishes  to  be  caught, 
and  who  trusts  to  chance  to  cut  the  Gordian  knot  of  her 
hesitancy.     So  we  went  to  les  Touches. 

"It  is  a  delightful  spot,  most  artistically  tasteful,  and  I 
revel  in  the  abyss  whither  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  had 
warned  me  never  to  go.  All  poison-flowers  are  beautiful. 
The  devil  sows  them — for  there  are  flowers  of  Satan's  and 
flowers  from  God  !  We  have  only  to  look  into  our  own 
hearts  to  see  that  they  went  halves  in  the  work  of  creation. 
What  bitter-sweet  joys  I  found  in  this  place  where  I  played, 
not  with  fire,  but  with  ashes.  I  watched  Calyste ;  I  wanted 
to  know  if  every  spark  was  dead,  and  looked  out  for  every 
chance  draught  of  air,  believe  me  !  I  noted  his  face  as  we 
went  from  room  to  room,  from  one  piece  of  furniture  to  an- 
other, exactly  like  children  seeking  some  hidden  object.  He 
seemed  thoughtful  ;  still,  at  first,  I  fancied  I  had  conquered. 
I  felt  brave  enough  to  speak  of  Madame  de  Rochefide,  who, 
since  the  adventure  of  her  fall  at  le  Croisic,  is  called  Roche- 
perfide.  Finally,  we  went  to  look  at  the  famous  box-shrub  on 
which  Beatrix  was  caught  when  Calyste  pushed  her  into  the 
sea  that  she  might  never  belong  to  any  man. 

"  'She  must  be  very  light  to  have  rested  there  !  '  said  I, 
laughing. 

"  Calyste  said  nothing.     '  Peace  to  the  dead,'  I  added. 

"  Still  he  was  silent.     '  Have  I  vexed  you?  '  I  asked. 

"  '  No.     But  do  not  galvanize  that  passion,'  he  replied. 

"  What  a  speech  !     Calyste,  seeing  it  had   saddened   me, 
was  doubly  kind  and  tender  to  me. 


17 


268  BE  A  TRIX. 

"August. 

"  Alas  !  I  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  pit  and  amusing  myself, 
like  the  innocents  in  a  melodrama,  with  plucking  the  flowers. 
Suddenly  a  horrible  idea  came  galloping  across  my  happiness 
like  the  horse  in  the  German  ballad.  I  fancied  I  could  dis- 
cern that  Calyste's  love  was  fed  by  his  reminiscences,  that  he 
was  wreaking  on  me  the  storms  I  could  revive  in  him,  by  re- 
minding him  of  that  horrible  coquette  Beatrix.  That  unwhole- 
some, cold,  limp,  tenacious  nature — akin  to  the  mollusc  and 
the  coral  insect — dares  to  be  called  Beatrix ! 

"  So  already,  dear  mother,  I  am  forced  to  have  an  eye  on  a 
suspicion  when  my  heart  is  wholly  Calyste's,  and  is  it  not  a 
terrible  misfortune  that  the  eye  should  get  the  better  of  the 
heart;  that  the  suspicion,  in  short,  has  been  justified?  And 
in  this  way — 

"  '  I  love  this  place,'  I  said  to  Calyste  one  morning,  '  for  I 
owe  my  happiness  to  it — so  I  forgive  you  for  sometimes  mis- 
taking me  for  another  woman ' 

"  My  loyal  Breton  colored,  and  I  threw  my  arms  round  his 
neck ;  but  I  came  away  from  les  Touches,  and  shall  never  go 
back  there. 

"  The  depth  of  my  hatred,  which  makes  me  long  for  the 
death  of  Madame  de  Rochefide — oh  dear,  a  natural  death,  of 
course,  from  a  cold,  or  some  accident — revealed  to  me  the 
extent  and  vehemence  of  my  love  for  Calyste.  This  woman 
has  haunted  my  slumbers ;  I  have  seen  her  in  my  dreams. 
Am  I  fated  to  meet  her  ?  Yes,  the  novice  in  the  convent  was 
right ;  les  Touches  is  a  fatal  spot.  Calyste  renewed  his  im- 
pressions there,  and  they  are  stronger  than  the  pleasures  of 
our  love. 

"  Find  out,  my  dear  mother,  whether  Madame  de  Rochefide 
is  in  Paris  ;  for,  if  so,  I  shall  remain  on  our  estates  in  Brittany. 
Poor  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  who  is  now  sorry  that  she 
dressed  me  like  Beatrix  on  the  day  when  our  marriage-contract 
was  signed,  to  carry  out  her  scheme — if  she  could  now  know 


BEATRIX.  259 

how  completely  I  am  a  substitute  for  our  odious  rival !  What 
would  she  say?  Why,  it  is  prostitution!  I  am  no  longer 
myself !  I  am  put  to  shame.  I  am  suffering  from  a  mad 
desire  to  flee  from  Guerande  and  the  sands  of  le  Croisic. 

"August  25. 
"  I  am  quite  resolved  to  return  to  the  ruins  of  le  Guenic. 
Calyste,  troubled  at  seeing  me  so  uneasy,  is  taking  me  thither. 
Either  he  does  not  know  much  of  the  world  or  he  guesses 
nothing;  or,  if  he  knows  the  reason  of  my  flight,  he  does  not 
love  me.  I  am  so  afraid  of  discovering  the  hideous  certainty 
if  I  seek  it,  that,  like  the  children,  I  cover  my  eyes  with  my 
hands  not  to  hear  the  explosion.  Oh,  mother!  I  am  not 
loved  with  such  love  as  I  feel  in  my  own  heart.  Calyste,  to 
be  sure,  is  charming;  but  what  man  short  of  a  monster  would 
not  be,  like  Calyste,  amiable  and  gracious,  when  he  is  given 
all  the  opening  blossoms  of  the  soul  of  a  girl  of  twenty, 
brought  up  by  you,  pure  as  I  am,  and  loving,  and — as  many 
women  have  told  you — very  pretty " 

"Le  Guenic,  September  \%th. 

"Has  he  forgotten  her?  This  is  the  one  thought  which 
echoes  like  remorse  in  my  soul.  Dear  mother,  has  every  wife, 
like  me,  some  such  memory  to  contend  with  ?  Pure  girls  ought  to 
marry  none  but  innocent  youths  !  And  yet  that  is  an  illusory 
Utopia ;  and  it  is  better  to  have  a  rival  in  the  past  than  in 
the  future.  Pity  me,  mamma,  though  at  this  moment  I  am 
happy ;  happy  as  a  woman  is  who  fears  to  lose  her  happiness 
and  clings  to  it  ! — a  way  of  killing  it  sometimes,  says  wise 
Clotilde. 

"I  perceive  that  for  the  last  five  months  I  have  thought 
only  of  myself;  that  is,  of  Calyste.  Tell  my  sister  Clotilde 
that  the  dicta  of  her  melancholy  wisdom  recur  to  me  some- 
times. She  is  happy  in  being  faithful  to  the  dead  ;  she  need 
fear  no  rival. 


260  BEATRIX. 

" A  kiss  to  my  dear  Athenais  ;  I  see  that  Juste  is  madly  in 
love  with  her.  From  what  you  say  in  your  last  letter,  all  he 
fears  is  that  he  may  not  win  her.  Cultivate  that  fear  as  a 
precious  flower.  Athenais  'will  be  mistress ;  I;  who  dreaded 
lest  I  should  not  win  Calyste  from  himself,  shall  be  the  hand- 
maid. A  thousand  loves,  dearest  mother.  Indeed,  if  my 
fears  should  not  prove  vain,  I  shall  have  paid  very  dear  for 
Camille  Maupin's  fortune.  Affectionate  respects  to  my 
father." 

These  letters  fully  explain  the  secret  attitude  of  this  hus- 
band and  wife.  Where  Sabine  saw  a  love-match,  Calyste  saw 
a  mariage  de  convenance.  And  the  joys  of  the  honeymoon 
had  not  altogether  fulfilled  the  requirements  of  the  law  as  to 
community  of  goods. 

During  their  stay  in  Brittany  the  work  of  restoring,  ar- 
ranging, and  decorating  the  Hotel  du  Guenic  in  Paris  had 
been  carried  on  by  the  famous  architect  Grindot,  under  the 
eye  of  Clotilde  and  the  Duchesse  and  Due  de  Grandlieu. 
Every  step  was  taken  to  enable  the  young  couple  to  return  to 
Paris  in  December,  1838;  and  Sabine  was  glad  to  settle  in  the 
Rue  de  Bourbon,  less  for  the  pleasure  of  being  mistress  of 
the  house  than  to  discover  what  her  family  thought  of  her 
married  life.  Calyste,  handsome  and  indifferent,  readily  al- 
lowed himself  to  be  guided  in  matters  of  fashion  by  Clotilde 
and  his  mother-in-law,  who  were  gratified  by  his  docility. 
He  filled  the  place  in  the  world  to  which  his  name,  his  for- 
tune, and  his  connection  entitled  him.  His  wife's  success, 
regarded  as  she  was  as  one  of  the  most  charming  women  of 
the  year,  the  amusements  of  the  best  society,  duties  to  be 
done,  and  the  dissipations  of  a  Paris  season,  somewhat  re- 
cruited the  happiness  of  the  young  couple  by  supplying 
excitement  and  interludes.  The  Duchesse  and  Clotilde  be- 
lieved in  Sabine's  happiness,  ascribing  Calyste's  cold  manners 
to  his  English  blood,  and  the  young  wife  got  over  her  gloomy 


BEATRIX.  261 

notions ;  she  heard  herself  envied  by  so  many  less  happy 
wives,  that  she  banished  her  terrors  to  the  limbo  of  bad 
dreams.  Finally,  Sabine's  prospect  of  motherhood  was  the 
crowning  guarantee  for  the  future  of  this  neutral-tinted  union, 
a  good  augury  on  which  women  of  experience  rely. 

In  October,  1839,  the  young  Baronne  du  Guenic  had  a  son, 
and  was  so  foolish  as  to  nurse  him  herself,  like  almost  every 
woman  under  similar  circumstances.  How  can  she  help  being 
wholly  a  mother  when  her  child  is  the  child  of  a  husband  so 
truly  idolized  ?  Thus  by  the  end  of  the  following  summer 
Sabine  was  preparing  to  wean  her  first  child. 

In  the  course  of  a  two  years'  residence  in  Paris,  Calyste 
had  entirely  shed  the  innocence  which  had  cast  the  light  of 
its  prestige  on  his  first  experience  in  the  world  of  passion. 
Calyste,  as  the  comrade  of  the  young  Due  de  Maufrigneuse — 
like  himself,  lately  married  to  an  heiress,  Berthe  de  Cinq-Cygne 
— of  the  Vicomte  Savinien  de  Portenduere,  of  the  Due  and 
Duchesse  de  Rhetore,  the  Due  and  Duchesse  de  Lenoncourt- 
Chaulieu,  and  all  the  company  that  met  in  his  mother-in-law's 
drawing-room,  learned  to  see  the  differences  that  divide  pro- 
vincial from  Paris  life.  Wealth  has  its  dark  hours,  its  tracts 
of  idleness,  for  which  Paris,  better  than  any  other  capital,  can 
provide  amusement,  diversion,  and  interest.  Hence,  under 
the  influence  of  these  young  husbands,  who  would  leave  the 
noblest  and  most  beautiful  creatures  for  the  delights  of  the 
cigar  or  of  whist,  for  the  sublime  conversation  at  a  club  or 
the  absorbing  interests  of  the  turf,  many  of  the  domestic 
virtues  were  undermined  in  the  young  Breton  husband.  The 
maternal  instinct  in  a  woman  who  cannot  endure  to  bore  her 
husband  is  always  ready  to  support  young  married  men  in 
their  dissipations.  A  woman  is  so  proud  of  seeing  the  man 
she  leaves  perfectly  free  come  back  to  her  side. 

One  evening,  in  October  this  year,  to  escape  the  cries  of  a 
weaned  child,  Calyste — on  whose  brow  Sabine  could  not  bear 
to  see  a  cloud — was  advised  by  her  to  go  to  the  Theatre  des 


362  BE  A  TRIX. 

Varietes,  where  a  new  piece  was  being  acted.  The  servant 
sent  to  secure  a  stall  had  taken  one  quite  near  to  the  stage- 
boxes.  Between  the  first  and  second  acts,  Calyste,  looking 
about  him,  saw  in  one  of  these  boxes  on  the  ground  tier,  not 
four  yards  away,  Madame  de  Rochefide. 

Beatrix  in  Paris !  Beatrix  in  public !  The  two  ideas 
pierced  Calyste's  brain  like  two  arrows.  He  could  see  her 
again  after  nearly  three  years  !  Who  can  describe  the  com- 
motion in  the  soul  of  this  lover  who,  far  from  forgetting,  had 
sometimes  so  completely  identified  Beatrix  with  his  wife  that 
Sabine  had  been  conscious  of  it  ?  Who  can  understand  how 
this  poem  of  a  lost  and  misprized  love,  ever  living  in  the 
heart  of  Sabine's  husband,  overshadowed  the  young  wife's 
dutiful  charms  and  ineffable  tenderness?  Beatrix  became 
light,  the  day-star,  excitement,  life,  the  unknown;  while 
Sabine  was  duty,  darkness,  the  familiar  !  In  that  instant  one 
was  pleasure,  the  other  satiety.     It  was  a  thunderbolt. 

Sabine's  husband  in  a  loyal  impulse  felt  a  noble  prompting 
to  leave  the  house.  As  he  went  out  from  the  stalls,  the  door 
of  the  box  was  open,  and  in  spite  of  himself  his  feet  carried 
him  in.  He  found  Beatrix  between  two  very  distinguished 
men,  Canalis  and  Nathan — a  politician  and  a  literary  celeb- 
rity. During  nearly  three  years,  since  Calyste  had  last  seen 
Madame  de  Rochefide,  she  had  altered  very  much ;  but 
though  the  metamorphosis  had  changed  the  woman's  nature, 
she  seemed  all  the  more  poetical  and  attractive  in  Calyste's 
eyes.  Up  to  the  age  of  thirty,  clothing  is  all  a  pretty  Paris- 
ian demands  of  dress  ;  but  when  she  has  crossed  the  threshold 
of  the  thirties,  she  looks  to  finery  for  armor,  fascinations,  and 
embellishment ;  she  composes  it  to  lend  her  graces ;  she  finds 
a  purpose  in  it,  assumes  a  character,  makes  herself  young 
again,  studies  the  smallest  accessories — in  short,  abandons 
nature  for  art. 

Madame  de  Rochefide  had  just  gone  through  the  changing 
scenes  of  the  drama  whichj  in  this  history  of  the  manners  of 


BEATRIX.  263 

the  French  in  the  nineteenth  century,  is  called  "  The  De- 
serted Woman."  Conti  having  thrown  her  over,  she  had 
naturally  become  a  great  artist  in  dress,  in  flirtation,  and  in 
artificial  bloom  of  every  description. 

"How  is  it  that  Conti  is  not  here?"  asked  Calyste  of 
Canalis  in  a  whisper,  after  the  commonplace  greetings  which 
begin  the  most  momentous  meeting  when  it  takes  place  in 
public. 

The  erewhile  poet  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  twice 
minister,  and  now  for  the  fourth  time  a  speaker  hoping  for 
fresh  promotion,  laid  his  finger  with  meaning  on  his  lips. 
This  explained  all. 

"I  am  so  glad  to  see  you,"  said  Beatrix,  in  a  kittenish 
way.  "  I  said  to  myself  as  soon  as  I  saw  you,  before  you  saw 
me,  that  you,  at  any  rate,  would  not  disown  me  !  Oh,  my 
Calyste  !  "  she  murmured  in  his  ear,  "  why  are  you  married  ? 
— and  to  such  a  little  fool,  too  !  " 

As  soon  as  a  woman  whispers  to  a  new-comer  in  her  box, 
and  makes  him  sit  down  by  her,  men  of  breeding  always  find 
some  excuse  for  leaving  them  together. 

"Are  you  coming,  Nathan?"  said  Canalis;  "Madame  la 
Marquise  will  excuse  me  if  I  go  to  speak  a  word  to  d'Arthez, 
whom  I  see  with  the  Princesse  de  Cadignan.  I  must  talk 
about  a  combination  of  speakers  for  to-morrow's  sitting." 

This  retreat,  effected  with  good  taste,  gave  Calyste  a  chance 
of  recovering  from  the  shock  he  had  sustained  ;  but  he  lost 
all  his  remaining  strength  and  presence  of  mind  as  he  inhaled 
the,  to  him,  intoxicating  and  poisonous  fragrance  of  the  poem 
called  Beatrix. 

Madame  de  Rochefide,  who  had  grown  bony  and  stringy, 
whose  complexion  was  almost  ruined,  thin,  faded,  with  dark 
circles  around  her  eyes,  had  that  evening  wreathed  the  un- 
timely ruin  with  the  most  ingenious  devices  of  Parisian  frip- 
pery. Like  all  deserted  women,  she  had  tried  to  give  herself 
a  virgin  grace,  and  by  the  effect  of  various  white  draperies  to 


264  BEATRIX. 

recall  the  maidens  of  Ossian,  with  names  ending  in  a,  so  poet' 
ically  represented  by  Girodet.  Her  fair  hair  fell  about  her 
long  face  in  bunches  of  curls,  reflecting  the  flare  of  the  foot- 
lights in  the  sheen  of  scented  oil.  Her  pale  forehead  shone; 
she  had  applied  an  imperceptible  touch  of  rouge  over  the  dull 
whiteness  of  her  skin,  bathed  in  bran-water,  and  its  brilliancy 
cheated  the  eye.  A  scarf,  so  fine  that  it  was  hard  to  believe 
that  man  could  have  woven  it  of  silk,  was  wound  about  her 
neck  so  as  to  diminish  its  length  by  hiding  it,  and  barely 
revealing  the  treasures  enticingly  displayed  by  her  stays.  The 
bodice  was  a  masterpiece  of  art.  As  to  her  attitude,  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  it  was  well  worth  the  pains  she  had  taken 
to  elaborate  it.  Her  arms,  lean  and  hard,  were  scarcely 
visible  through  the  carefully  arranged  puffs  of  her  wide  sleeves. 
She  presented  that  mixture  of  false  glitter  and  sheeny  silk,  of 
flowing  gauze  and  frizzled  hair,  of  liveliness,  coolness,  and 
movement  which  has  been  called  je  ne  sais  quoi.*  Every  one 
knows  what  is  meant  by  thisy>  ne  sais  quoi.  It  is  a  compound 
of  cleverness,  taste,  and  temperament.  Beatrix  was,  in  fact,  a 
drama,  a  spectacle,  all  scenery,  and  transformations,  and  mar- 
velous  machinery. 

The  performance  of  these  fairy  pieces,  which  are  no  less 
brilliant  in  dialogue,  turns  the  head  of  a  man  blessed  with 
honesty ;  for,  by  the  law  of  contrast,  he  feels  a  frenzied  desire 
to  play  with  the  artificial  thing.  It  is  false  and  seductive, 
elaborate,  but  pleasing,  and  there  are  men  who  adore  these 
women  who  play  at  being  charming  as  one  plays  a  game  of 
cards.  This  is  the  reason — man's  desire  is  a  syllogism,  and 
argues  from  this  external  skill  to  the  secret  theorems  of  volup- 
tuous enjoyment.  .The  mind  concludes,  though  not  in  words, 
"A  woman  who  can  make  herself  so  attractive  must  have 
other  resources  of  passion."  And  it  is  true.  The  women 
who  are  deserted  are  the  women  who  love ;  the  women  who 
keep  their  lovers  are  those  know  how  to  love.     Now,  though 

*  I  know  not  what. 


BEATRIX.  265 

this  lesson  in  Italian  had  been  a  hard  one  for  Beatrix's  vanity, 
her  nature  was  too  thoroughly  artificial  not  to  profit  by  it. 

"  It  is  not  a  matter  of  loving  you  men,"  she  had  been  say- 
ing some  minutes  before  Calyste  went  in  ;  "we  have  to  worry 
you  when  we  have  got  you ;  that  is  the  secret  of  keeping  you. 
Dragons  who  guard  treasures  are  armed  with  talons  and 
wings !  ' ' 

"  Your  idea  might  be  put  into  a  sonnet,"  Canalis  was  saying 
just  as  Calyste  entered  the  box. 

At  one  glance  Beatrix  read  Calyste's  condition ;  she  saw, 
still  fresh  and  raw,  the  marks  of  the  collar  she  had  put  on  him 
at  les  Touches.  Calyste,  offended  by  her  phrase  about  his 
wife,  hesitated  between  his  dignity  as  a  husband,  defending 
Sabine,  and  finding  a  sharp  word  to  cast  on  the  heart  whence, 
for  him,  arose  such  fragrant  reminiscences — a  heart  he  believed 
to  be  yet  bleeding.  The  Marquise  discerned  this  hesitancy ; 
she  had  spoken  thus  solely  to  gauge  the  extent  of  her  power 
over  Calyste,  and,  seeing  him  so  weak,  she  came  to  his  assist- 
ance to  get  him  out  of  his  difficulty. 

"Well,  my  friend,"  said  she,  when  the  two  courtiers  had 
left,  "  you  see  me  alone — yes,  alone  in  the  world  !  " 

"And  you  never  thought  of  me  ?  "  said  Calyste. 

"  You  ?  "  she  replied  ;  "  are  you  not  married  ?  It  has  been 
one  of  my  great  griefs  among  the  many  I  have  endured  since 
we  last  met.  '  Not  merely  have  I  lost  love,'  I  said  to  myself, 
*  but  friendship,  too,  a  friendship  I  believed  to  be  wholly 
Breton.'  We  get  used  to  anything.  I  now  suffer  less,  but  I 
am  broken.  This  is  the  first  time  for  a  long  while  that  I  have 
unburdened  my  heart.  Compelled  to  be  reserved  in  the 
presence  of  indifferent  persons,  and  as  arrogant  to  those  who 
court  me  as  though  I  had  never  fallen,  and  having  lost  my 
dear  Felicite,  I  have  no  ear  into  which  to  breathe  the  words, 
'  I  am  wretched  !  '  And  even  now,  can  I  tell  you  what  my 
anguish  was  when  I  saw  you  a  few  yards  away  from  me,  not 
recognizing  me ;  or  what  my  joy  is  at  seeing  you  close  tc  me? 


266  BEATRIX. 

Yes,"  said  she,  at  a  movement  on  Calyste's  part,  "it  is  almost 
fidelity  !  In  this  you  see  what  misfortune  means  !  A  nothing, 
a  visit,  is  everything. 

"Yes,  you  really  loved  me,  as  I  deserved  to  be  loved  by 
the  man  who  has  chosen  to  trample  on  all  the  treasures  I  cast 
at  his  feet.  And,  alas  !  to  my  woe,  I  cannot  forget ;  I  love, 
and  I  mean  to  be  true  to  the  past,  which  can  never  return." 

As  she  poured  out  this  speech,  a  hundred  times  rehearsed, 
she  used  her  eyes  in  such  a  way  as  to  double  the  effect  of 
words  which  seemed  to  surge  up  from  her  soul  with  the  vio- 
lence of  a  long-restrained  torrent.  Calyste,  instead  of  speak- 
ing, let  fall  the  tears  that  had  been  gathering  in  his  eyes. 
Beatrix  took  his  hand  and  pressed  it,  making  him  turn  pale. 

"  Thank  you,  Calyste  ;  thank  you,  my  poor  boy ;  that  is 
the  way  a  true  friend  should  respond  to  a  friend's  sorrow. 
We  understand  each  other.  There,  do  not  add  another  word  ! 
Go  now;  if  we  were  seen,  you  might  cause  your  wife  grief  if 
by  chance  any  one  told  her  that  we  had  met — though  inno- 
cently enough,  in  the  face  of  a  thousand  people.      Good-by,  I 

am  brave,  you  see "     And  she  wiped  her  eyes  by  what 

should  be  called  in  feminine  rhetoric  the  antithesis  of  action. 

"  Leave  me  to  laugh  the  laugh  of  the  damned  with  the 
people  I  do  not  care  for,  but  who  amuse  me,"  she  went  on. 
"  I  see  artists  and  writers,  the  circle  that  I  knew  at  our  poor 
Camille's — she  was  right,  no  doubt  !  Enrich  the  man  you 
love,  and  then  disappear,  saying,  '  I  am  too  old  for  him  !  '  It 
is  to  die  a  martyr.  And  that  is  best  when  one  cannot  die  a 
virgin." 

She  laughed,  as  if  to  efface  the  melancholy  impression  she 
might  have  made  on  her  adorer. 

"  But  where  can  I  call  on  you?  "  asked  Calyste. 

"I  have  hidden  myself  in  the  Rue  de  Courcelles,  close  to 
the  Pare  Monceaux,  in  a  tiny  house  suited  to  my  fortune,  and 
I  cram  my  brain  with  literature — but  for  my  own  satisfaction 
only,  to  amuse  myself.     Heaven  preserve  me  from  the  mania 


BEATRIX.  267 

of  writing  !  Go,  leave  me ;  I  do  not  want  to  be  talked  about, 
and  what  will  not  people  say  if  they  see  us  together?  And, 
beside,  Calyste,  I  tell  you,  if  you  stay  a  minute  longer  I  shall 
cry,  for  I  can't  help  it." 

Calyste  withdrew,  after  giving  his  hand  to  Beatrix,  and 
feeling  a  second  time  the  deep  strange  sensation  of  a  pressure 
on  both  sides  full  of  suggestive  incitement. 

"My  God  !  Sabine  never  stirred  my  heart  like  this,"  was 
the  thought  that  assailed  him  in  the  corridor. 

Throughout  the  rest  of  the  evening  the  Marquise  de  Roche- 
fide  did  not  look  three  times  straight  at  Calyste ;  but  she  sent 
him  side-glances  which  rent  the  soul  of  the  man  who  had  given 
himself  up  wholly  to  his  first  and  rejected  love. 

When  the  Baron  du  Guenic  was  at  home  again,  the  magnifi- 
cence of  his  rooms  reminded  him  of  the.  sort  of  mediocrity 
to  which  Beatrix  had  alluded,  and  he  felt  a  hatred  for  the 
fortune  that  did  not  belong  to  that  fallen  angel.  On  hearing 
that  Sabine  had  been  in  bed  some  time,  he  was  happy  in 
having  a  night  to  himself  to  live  in  his  emotions. 

He  now  cursed  the  perspicacity  given  to  Sabine  by  her 
affection.  When  it  happens  that  a  man  is  adored  by  his  wife, 
she  can  read  his  face  like  a  book,  she  knows  the  slightest  quiver 
of  his  muscles,  she  divines  the  reason  when  he  is  calm,  she 
questions  herself  when  he  is  in  the  least  sad,  wondering  if  she 
is  in  fault,  she  watches  his  eyes  ;  to  her  those  eyes  are  colored 
by  his  ruling  thought — they  love  or  they  love  not.  Calyste 
knew  himself  to  be  the  object  of  a  worship  so  complete,  so 
artless,  so  jealous,  that  he  doubted  whether  he  could  assume 
a  countenance  that  would  preserve  the  secret  of  the  change 
that  had  come  over  him. 

"What  shall  I  do  to-morrow  morning?"  said  he  to  him- 
self as  he  fell  asleep,  fearing  Sabine's  scrutiny. 

For  when  they  first  met,  or  even  in  the  course  of  the  day, 
Sabine  would  ask  him,  "  Do  you  love  me  as  much  as  ever?  " 
or,   "I   don't   bore  you?"     Gracious  questionings,  varying 


268  BEATRIX. 

according  to  the  wife's  wit  or  mood,  and  covering  real  or 
imaginary  terrors. 

A  storm  will  stir  up  mud  and  bring  it  to  the  top  of  the  noblest 
and  purest  hearts.  And  so,  next  morning,  Calyste,  who  was 
genuinely  fond  of  his  child,  felt  a  thrill  of  joy  at  hearing  that 
Sabine  was  anxious  as  to  the  cause  of  some  symptoms,  and, 
fearing  croup,  could  not  leave  the  infant  Calyste.  The  Baron 
excused  himself  on  the  score  of  business  from  breakfasting  at 
home,  and  went  out.  He  fled  as  a  prisoner  escapes,  happy 
in  the  mere  act  of  walking,  in  going  across  the  Pont  Louis 
XVI.  and  the  Champs-Elysees  to  a  cafe  on  the  boulevard, 
where  he  breakfasted  alone. 

What  is  there  in  love  ?  Does  nature  turn  restive  under  the 
social  yoke  ?  Does  nature  insist  that  the  spring  of  a  devoted 
life  shall  be  spontaneous  and  free,  its  flow  that  of  a  wild 
torrent  tossed  by  the  rocks  of  contradiction  and  caprice,  in- 
stead of  a  tranquil  stream  trickling  between  two  banks — the 
mairie  on  one  side  and  the  church  on  the  other?  Has  she 
schemes  of  her  own  when  she  is  hatching  those  volcanic  erup- 
tions to  which  perhaps  we  owe  our  great  men  ? 

It  would  have  been  difficult  to  find  a  young  man  more 
piously  brought  up  than  Calyste,  of  purer  life,  or  less  tainted 
by  infidelity ;  and  he  was  rushing  toward  a  woman  quite 
unworthy  of  him,  when  a  merciful  and  glorious  chance 
brought  to  him,  in  Sabine,  a  girl  of  really  aristocratic  beauty, 
with  a  refined  and  delicate  mind,  pious,  loving,  and  wholly 
attached  to  him ;  her  angelic  sweetness  still  touched  with  the 
pathos  of  love,  passionate  love  in  spite  of  marriage — such 
love  as  his  for  Beatrix. 

The  greatest  men,  perhaps,  have  still  some  clay  in  their  com- 
position ;  the  mire  still  has  charms.  So,  in  spite  of  folly  and 
frailty,  the  woman  would  then  be  the  less  imperfect  creature. 
Madame  de  Rochefide  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd  of  artistic 
pretenders  who   surrounded   her,   and   in  spite  of  her  fall, 


BE  A  TRIX.  269 

belonged  to  the  highest  nobility  all  the  same ;  her  nature  was 
ethereal  rather  than  earth-born,  and  she  hid  the  courtesan 
she  meant  to  be  under  the  most  aristocratic  exterior.  So  this 
explanation  cannot  account  for  Calyste's  strange  passion. 

The  reason  may  perhaps  be  found  in  a  vanity  so  deeply 
buried  that  moralists  have  not  yet  discerned  that  side  of  vice. 
There  are  men,  truly  noble  as  Calyste  was,  and  as  handsome, 
rich,  elegant,  and  well  bred,  who  weary — unconsciously  per- 
haps— of  wedded  life  with  a  nature  like  their  own  ;  beings 
whose  loftiness  is  not  amazed  by  loftiness,  who  are  left  cold 
by  a  dignity  and  refinement  on  a  constant  level  with  their  own, 
but  who  crave  to  find  in  inferior  or  fallen  natures  a  corrobora- 
tion of  their  own  superiority  though  they  would  not  ask  their 
praises.  The  contrast  of  moral  degradation  and  magnanimity 
fascinates  their  sight.  What  is  pure  shines  so  vividly  by  the 
side  of  what  is  impure  ?  This  comparison  is  pleasing.  Calyste 
found  nothing  in  Sabine  to  protect  ;  she  was  irreproachable  ; 
all  the  wasted  energies  of  his  heart  went  forth  to  Beatrix. 
And  if  we  have  seen  great  men  playing  the  part  of  Jesus, 
raising  up  the  woman  taken  in  adultery,  how  should  common- 
place folk  be  any  wiser  ? 

Calyste  lived  till  two  o'clock  on  the  thought,  "  I  shall  see 
her  again  !  "  a  poem  which  ere  now  has  proved  sustaining 
during  a  journey  of  seven  hundred  leagues.  Then  he  went 
with  a  light  step  to  the  Rue  de  Courcelles ;  he  recognized  the 
house  though  he  had  never  seen  it ;  and  he,  the  Due  de 
Grandlieu's  son-in-law,  he,  as  rich,  as  noble  as  the  Bourbons, 
stood  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  stopped  by  the  question  from 
an  old  butler,  "  Your  name,  if  you  please,  sir  ?  " 

Calyste  understood  that  he  must  leave  Madame  de  Roche- 
fide  free  to  act,  and  he  looked  out  on  the  garden  and  the 
walls  streaked  with  black  and  yellow  lines  left  by  the  rain  on 
the  stucco  of  Paris. 

Madame  de  Rochefide,  like  most  fine  ladies  when  they 
break  their  chain,  had  fled,  leaving  her  fortune  in  her  hus- 

W 


270  BE  A  TRIX. 

band's  hands,  and  she  would  not  appeal  for  help  to  her  tyrant. 
Conti  and  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  had  spared  Beatrix  all 
the  cares  of  material  life,  and  her  mother  from  time  to  time 
sent  her  a  sum  of  money.  Now  that  she  was  alone,  she  was 
reduced  to  economy  of  a  rather  severe  kind  to  a  woman  used 
to  luxury.  So  she  had  taken  herself  to  the  top  of  the  hill  on 
which  lies  the  Pare  Monceaux,  sheltering  herself  in  a  little 
old  house  of  some  departed  magnate,  facing  the  street,  but 
with  a  charming  little  garden  behind  it,  at  a  rent  of  not  more 
than  eighteen  hundred  francs.  And  still,  with  an  old  man- 
servant, a  maid  and  a  cook  from  Alencon,  who  had  clung  to 
her  in  her  reverses,  her  poverty  would  have  seemed  opulence 
to  many  an  ambitious  middle-class  housewife. 

Calyste  went  up  a  flight  of  well-whitened  stone  stairs,  the 
landings  gay  with  flowers.  On  the  second  floor  the  old  butler 
showed  Calyste  into  the  rooms  through  a  double  door  of  red 
velvet  paneled  with  red  silk  and  gilt  nails.  The  rooms  he 
went  through  were  also  hung  with  red  silk  and  velvet.  Dark- 
toned  carpets,  hangings  across  the  windows  and  doors,  the 
whole  interior  was  in  contrast  with  the  outside,  which  the 
owner  was  at  no  pains  to  keep  up. 

Calyste  stood  waiting  for  Beatrix  in  a  drawing-room,  quite 
in  style,  where  luxury  affected  simplicity.  It  was  hung  with 
bright  crimson  velvet  set  off  by  cording  of  dull  yellow  silk ; 
the  carpet  was  a  darker  red,  the  windows  looked  like  conserva- 
tories, they  were  so  crowded  with  flowers,  and  there  was  so  little 
daylight  that  he  could  scarcely  see  two  vases  of  fine,  old  red 
porcelain,  and  between  them  a  silver  cup  attributed  to  Ben- 
venuto  Cellini,  and  brought  from  Italy  by  Beatrix.  The 
furniture  of  gilt  wood  upholstered  with  velvet,  the  handsome 
consoles,  on  one  of  which  stood  a  curious  clock,  the  table 
covered  with  a  Persian  cloth,  all  bore  witness  to  past  wealth, 
of  which  the  remains  were  carefully  arranged.  On  a  small 
table  Calyste  saw  some  trinkets,  and  a  book  half-read,  in 
which  the  place  was  marked  by  a  dagger — symbolical  of  criti* 


BEATRIX.  271 

cism — its  handle  sparkling  with  jewels.  On  the  walls  ten 
water-color  drawings,  handsomely  framed,  all  representing 
bedrooms  in  the  various  houses  where  Beatrix  had  lived  in 
the  course  of  her  wandering  life,  gave  an  idea  of  her  supreme 
impertinence. 

The  rustle  of  a  silk  dress  announced  the  unfortunate  lady, 
who  appeared  in  a  studied  toilet,  which,  if  Calyste  had  been 
an  older  hand,  would  certainly  have  shown  him  that  he  was 
expected.  The  dress,  made  like  a  dressing-gown  to  show  a 
triangle  of  the  white  throat,  was  of  pearl-gray  watered  silk 
with  open  hanging  sleeves,  showing  the  arms  covered  with  an 
undersleeve  made  with  puffs  divided  by  straps,  and  with  lace 
ruffles.  Her  fine  hair,  loosely  fastened  with  a  comb,  escaped 
from  under  a  cap  of  lace  and  flowers. 

"So  soon,"  said  she  with  a  smile.  "A  lover  would  not 
have  been  so  eager.  So  you  have  some  secrets  to  tell  me,  I 
suppose?"  And  she  seated  herself  on  a  sofa,  signing  to 
Calyste  to  take  a  place  by  her. 

By  some  chance — not  perhaps  unintentional,  for  women 
have  two  kinds  of  memory,  that  of  the  angels  and  that  of  the 
devils — Beatrix  carried  about  her  the  same  perfume  that  she 
had  used  at  les  Touches  when  she  had  first  met  Calyste.  The 
breath  of  this  scent,  the  touch  of  that  dress,  the  look  of  those 
eyes,  which  in  the  twilight  seemed  to  focus  and  reflect  light, 
all  went  to  Calyste's  brain.  The  unhappy  fellow  felt  the 
same  surge  of  violence  as  had  already  so  nearly  killed  Beatrix  ; 
but  now  the  Marquise  was  on  the  edge  of  a  divan,  not  of  the 
ocean ;  she  rose  to  ring  the  bell,  putting  her  finger  to  her 
lips.  At  this  Calyste,  called  to  order,  controlled  himself;  he 
understood  that  Beatrix  had  no  hostile  intentions. 

"  Antoine,  I  am  not  at  home,"  said  she  to  the  old  servant. 
"  Put  some  wood  on  the  fire.  You  see,  Calyste,  I  treat  you 
as  a  friend,"  she  added  with  dignity  when  the  old  man  was 
gone.  "  Do  not  treat  me  as  your  mistress.  I  have  two  re- 
marks to  make  :     First,  that  I  should  not  make  any  foolish 


272  BE  A  TRIX. 

stipulations  with  a  man  I  loved  ;  next,  that  I  will  never  belong 
again  to  any  man  in  the  world.  For  I  believed  myself  loved, 
Calyste,  by  a  sort  of  Rizzio  whom  no  pledges  could  bind,  a 
man  absolutely  free,  and  you  see  whither  that  fatal  infatuation 
has  brought  me.  As  for  you,  you  are  tied  to  the  most  sacred 
duties ;  you  have  a  young,  amiable,  delightful  wife ;  and  you 
are  a  father.  I  should  be  as  inexcusable  as  you  are,  and  we 
should  both  be  mad " 

"  My  dear  Beatrix,  all  your  logic  falls  before  one  word.  I 
have  never  loved  any  one  on  earth  but  you,  and  I  married  in 
spite  of  myself." 

"A  little  trick  played  us  by  Mademoiselle  des  Touches," 
said  she  with  a  smile. 

For  three  hours  Madame  de  Rochefide  kept  Calyste  faithful 
to  his  conjugal  duties  by  pressing  on  him  the  horrible  ulti- 
matum of  a  complete  breach  with  Sabine.  Nothing  less,  she 
declared,  could  reassure  her  in  the  dreadful  position  in  which 
she  would  be  placed  by  Calyste's  passion.  And,  indeed,  she 
thought  little  of  ruthlessly  sacrificing  Sabine ;  she  knew  her  so 
well. 

"  Why,  my  dear  boy,  she  is  a  woman  who  fulfills  all  the 
promise  of  her  girlhood.  She  is  a  thorough  Grandlieu,  as 
brown  as  her  Portuguese  mother,  not  to  say  orange-colored, 
and  as  dry  as  her  father.  To  speak  the  truth,  your  wife  will 
never  be  lost  to  you  ;  she  is  just  a  great  boy,  and  can  walk 
alone.  Poor  Calyste  !  is  this  the  wife  to  suit  you  ?  She  has 
fine  eyes,  but  such  eyes  are  common  in  Italy,  Spain,  and 
Portugal.  Can  a  woman  so  lean  be  really  tender  ?  Eve  was 
fair ;  dark  women  are  descended  from  Adam,  fair  women 
from  God,  whose  hand  left  a  last  touch  on  Eve  when  all  crea- 
tion was  complete." 

At  about  six  o'clock  Calyste  in  desperation  took  up  his  hat 
to  go. 

"  Yes,  go,  my  poor  friend  ;  do  not  let  her  have  the  disap- 
pointment of  dining  without  you." 


BEATRIX.  273 

Calyste  stayed.     He  was  so  young,  so  easy  to  take  on  the 

wrong  side. 

"  You  would  really  dare  to  dine  with  me?  "  said  Beatrix, 
affecting  the  most  provoking  surprise.  "My  humble  fare 
does  not  frighten  you  away,  and  you  have  enough  independ- 
ence of  spirit  to  crown  my  joy  by  this  little  proof  of  genuine 
affection?  " 

"Only  let  me  write  a  line  to  Sabine,"  said  he,  "for  she 
would  wait  for  me  till  nine  o'clock." 

"  There  is  my  writing-table,"  said  Beatrix. 

She  herself  lighted  the  candles  and  brought  one  to  the 
table  to  see  what  Calyste  would  write. 

"  My  dear  Sabine." 

"  My  dear  !  Is  your  wife  still  dear  to  you?"  said  she, 
looking  at  him  so  coldly  that  it  froze  the  marrow  in  his  bones. 
"  Go,  then,  go  to  dine  with  her." 

"  I  am  dining  at  an  eating-house  with  some  friends — ■ — " 

"That  is  a  lie.  For  shame!  You  are  unworthy  of  her 
love  or  mine.  All  men  are  cowards  with  us.  That  will  do, 
monsieur ;  go  and  dine  with  your  dear  Sabine  !  " 

Calyste  threw  himself  back  in  his  armchair  and  turned  paler 
than  death.  Bretons  have  a  sort  of  obstinate  courage  which 
makes  them  hold  their  own  under  difficulties.  The  young 
Baron  sat  up  again  with  his  elbow  firmly  set  on  the  table,  his 
chin  in  his  hand,  and  his  sparkling  eyes  fixed  on  Beatrix,  who 
was  relentless.  He  looked  so  fine  that  a  true  northern  or 
southern  woman  would  have  fallen  on  her  knees,  saying, 
"Take  me!"  But  in  Beatrix,  born  on  the  border  between 
Normandy  and  Brittany,  of  the  race  of  Casteran,  desertion 
had  brought  out  the  ferocity  of  the  Frank  and  the  malignity 
of  the  Norman  ;  she  craved  a  tremendous  and  terrible  re- 
venge ;  she  did  not  yield  to  his  noble  impulse. 

"Dictate  what  I  am  to  write,  and  I  will  obey,"  said  the 
poor  boy.     "  But  then " 

"Then,  yes,"  she  replied,  "  for  you  will  love  me  then  as 
18 


274  BEATRIX. 

you  loved  me  at  Guerande.  Write,  'I  am  dining  in  town  j 
do  not  wait.'  " 

"  And ?  "  said  Calyste,  expecting  something  more. 

"Nothing.  Sign  it.  Good,"  she  said,  seizing  this  note 
with  covert  joy.      "  I  will  send  it  by  a  messenger." 

"  Now  !  "  cried  Calyste,  starting  up  like  a  happy  man. 

"  I  have  preserved  my  liberty  of  action,  I  believe,"  said 
she,  looking  around  and  pausing  half-way  between  the  table 
and  the  fireplace,  where  she  was  about  to  ring. 

"Here,  Antoine,  have  this  note  taken  to  the  address. 
Monsieur  will  dine  with  me." 

Calyste  went  home  at  about  two  in  the  morning. 

After  sitting  up  till  half-past  twelve,  Sabine  had  gone  to 
bed,  tired  out.  She  slept,  though  she  had  been  cruelly  star- 
tled by  the  brevity  of  her  husband's  note ;  still,  she  accounted 
for  it.  True  love  in  a  woman  can  always  explain  everything 
to  the  advantage  of  the  man  she  loves. 

"  Calyste  was  in  a  hurry  !  "  thought  she. 

Next  day  the  child  had  recovered,  the  mother's  alarms 
were  past.  Sabine  came  in  smiling  with  the  little  Calyste  in 
her  arms  to  show  him  to  his  father  just  before  breakfast,  full 
of  the  pretty  nonsense,  and  saying  the  silly  things  that  all 
young  mothers  are  full  of.  This  little  domestic  scene  enabled 
Calyste  to  put  a  good  face  on  matters,  and  he  was  charming 
to  his  wife  while  feeling  that  he  was  a  wretch.  He  played 
like  a  boy  himself  with  Monsieur  le  Chevalier ;  indeed,  he 
overdid  it,  overacting  his  part ;  but  Sabine  had  not  reached 
that  pitch  of  distrust  in  which  a  wife  notes  so  subtle  a  shade. 

At  last,  during  breakfast,  Sabine  asked — 

"  And  what  were  you  doing  yesterday?  " 

"  Portenduere,"  said  he,  "kept  me  to  dinner,  and  we  went 
to  the  club  to  play  a  few  rubbers  of  whist." 

"It  is  a  foolish  life,  my  Calyste,"  replied  Sabine.  "The 
young  men  of  our  day  ought  rather  to  think  of  recovering  all 
the  estates  in  the  country  that  their  fathers  lost.     They  can- 


BEATRIX.  275 

not  live  by  smoking  cigars,  playing  whist,  and  dissipating 
their  idleness  by  being  content  with  making  impertinent 
speeches  to  the  parvenus  who  are  ousting  them  from  all  their 
dignities,  by  cutting  themselves  off  from  the  masses,  whose 
soul  and  brain  they  ought  to  be,  and  to  whom  they  should 
appear  as  Providence.  Instead  of  being  a  party,  you  will 
only  be  an  opinion,  as  de  Marsay  said.  Oh  !  if  you  could 
only  know  how  my  views  have  expanded  since  I  have  rocked 
and  suckled  your  child.  I  want  to  see  the  old  name  of  du 
Guenic  figure  in  history." 

Then,  suddenly  looking  straight  into  Calyste's  eyes,  which 
were  pensively  fixed  on  her,  she  said — 

"You  must  admit  that  the  first  note  you  ever  wrote  me  was 
a  little  abrupt?" 

"I  never  thought  of  writing  till  I  reached  the  club." 
-     "  But  you  wrote  on  a  woman's  paper ;  it  had  some  womanly 
scent." 


"  The  club  managers  do  such  queer  things " 

The  Vicomte  de  Portenduere  and  his  wife,  a  charming  young 
couple,  had  become  so  intimate  with  the  du  Guenics  that  they 
shared  a  box  at  the  Italian  opera.  The  two  young  women, 
Sabine  and  Ursule,  had  been  drawn  into  this  friendship  by  a 
delightful  exchange  of  advice,  anxieties,  and  confidences  about 
their  babies.  While  Calyste,  a  novice  in  falsehood,  was 
thinking  to  himself,  "I  must  go  to  warn  Savinien,"  Sabine 
was  reflecting,  "  I  fancied  that  the  paper  was  stamped  with  a 
coronet !  " 

The  suspicion  flashed  like  lightning  through  her  conscious- 
ness, and  she  blamed  herself  for  it ;  but  she  made  up  her 
mind  to  look  for  the  note,  which,  in  the  midst  of  her  alarms 
on  the  previous  day,  she  had  tossed  into  her  letter-box. 

After  breakfast  Calyste  went  out,  telling  his  wife  he  should 
soon  return  ;  he  got  into  one  of  the  little  low  one-horse  car- 
riages which  were  just  beginning  to  take  the  place  of  the  in- 


276  BE  A  TRIX. 

convenient  cabriolet  of  our  grandfathers.  In  a  few  minutes 
he  reached  the  Rue  des  Saints-Peres,  where  the  Vicomte  lived, 
and  begged  him  to  do  him  the  little  kindness  of  lying  in  case 
Sabine  should  question  the  Vicomtesse — he  would  do  as  much 
for  him  next  time.  Then,  when  once  out  of  the  house,  Calyste, 
having  first  bidden  the  coachman  to  hurry  as  much  as  possible, 
went  in  a  few  minutes  from  the  Rue  des  Saints-Peres  to  the 
Rue  de  Courcelles.  He  was  anxious  to  know  how  Beatrix  had 
spent  the  rest  of  the  night. 

He  found  the  happy  victim  of  fate  just  out  of  her  bath, 
fresh,  beautified,  and  breakfasting  with  a  good  appetite.  He 
admired  the  grace  with  which  his  angel  ate  boiled  eggs,  and 
was  delighted  with  the  service  of  gold,  a  present  from  a  music- 
mad  lord  for  whom  Conti  had  written  some  songs,  on  ideas 
supplied  by  his  lordship,  who  had  published  them  as  his  own. 
Calyste  listened  to  a  few  piquant  anecdotes  related  by  his 
idol,  whose  chief  aim  was  to  amuse  him,  though  she  got  angry 
and  cried  when  he  left  her.  He  fancied  he  had  been  with  her 
half  an  hour,  and  did  not  get  home  till  three  o'clock.  His 
horse,  a  fine  beast  given  him  by  the  Vicomtesse  de  Grandlieu, 
looked  as  if  it  had  come  out  of  the  river,  it  was  so  streaming 
with  sweat. 

By  such  a  chance  as  a  jealous  woman  always  plans,  Sabine 
was  on  guard  at  a  window  looking  out  into  the  courtyard,  out 
of  patience  at  Calyste's  late  return,  and  uneasy  without 
knowing  why.  She  was  struck  by  the  condition  of  the  horse, 
its  mouth  full  of  foam. 

"  Where  has  he  been  ?  " 

The  question  was  whispered  in  her  ear  by  that  power  which 
is  not  conscience — not  the  devil,  nor  an  angel — the  power 
which  sees,  feels,  knows,  and  shows  us  the  unknown  ;  which 
makes  us  believe  in  the  existence  of  spiritual  beings,  creatures 
of  our  own  brain,  going  and  coming,  and  living  in  the  invisible 
sphere  of  ideas. 

"Where   have   you  come  from,  my  darling?"  said   she, 


BE  A  TKIX.  277 

going  down  to  the  first  landing  to  meet  Calyste.  "Abd-el- 
Kader  is  half-dead ;  you  said  you  would  be  out  but  a  few 
minutes,  and  I  have  been  expecting  you  these  three  hours." 

"Well,  well,"  said  Calyste  to  himself,  improving  in  the 
art  of  dissimulation,  "I  must  get  out  of  the  scrape  by  a 
present.  Dear  little  nurse,"  said  he,  putting  his  arm  round 
his  wife's  waist  with  a  more  coaxing  pressure  than  he  would 
have  given  it  if  he  had  not  felt  guilty,  "  it  is  impossible,  I 
see,  to  keep  a  secret,  however  innocent,  from  a  loving  wife 
who " 

"  We  don't  tell  secrets  on  the  stairs,"  she  replied,  laughing. 
"  Come  along  !  " 

In  the  middle  of  the  drawing-room  that  led  to  the  bed- 
room, she  saw,  reflected  in  a  mirror,  Calyste's  face,  in  which, 
not  knowing  that  it  could  be  seen,  his  fatigue  and  his  real 
feelings  showed ;  he  had  ceased  to  smile. 

"  That  secret?"  said  she,  turning  round. 

"You  have  been  such  a  heroic  nurse  that  the  heir-presump- 
tive of  the  du  Guenics  is  dearer  to  me  than  ever ;  I  wanted 
to  surprise  you — just  like  a  worthy  citizen  of  the  Rue  Saint- 
Denis.  A  dressing-table  is  being  fitted  for  you  which  is  a 
work  of  art — my  mother  and  Aunt  Zephirine  have  helped " 

Sabine  threw  her  arms  round  Calyste,  and  held  him  clasped 
to  her  heart,  her  head  on  his  neck,  trembling  with  the  weight 
of  happiness,  not  on  account  of  the  dressing-table,  but  be- 
cause her  suspicions  were  blown  to  the  winds.  It  was  one  of 
those  glorious  gushes  of  joy  which  can  be  counted  in  a  life- 
time, and  of  which  even  the  most  excessive  love  cannot  be 
prodigal,  for  life  would  be  too  quickly  burnt  out.  Men 
ought,  in  such  moments,  to  kneel  at  the  woman's  feet  in 
adoration,  for  the  impulse  is  sublime ;  all  the  powers  of  the 
heart  and  intellect  overflow  as  water  gushes  from  the  urn 
of  fountain-nymphs.     Sabine  melted  into  tears. 

Suddenly,  as  if  stung  by  a  viper,  she  pushed  Calyste  from 
her,  dropped  on  to  a  divan,  and  fainted  away;  the  sudden 


278  BEATRIX. 

chill  on  her  glowing  heart  had  almost  killed  her.  As  she 
held  Calyste,  her  nose  in  his  necktie,  given  up  to  happiness, 
she  had  smelt  the  same  perfume  as  that  on  the  note-paper ! 
Another  woman's  head  had  lain  there,  her  face  and  hair  had 
left  the  very  scent  of  adultery.  She  had  just  kissed  the  spot 
where  her  rival's  kisses  were  still  warm. 

"  What  is  the  matter?  "  said  Calyste,  after  bringing  Sabine 
back  to  her  senses  by  bathing  her  face  with  a  wet  handker- 
chief. 

"  Go   and   fetch   the   doctor  and    the    accoucheur — both. 

Yes,  I  feel  the  milk  has  turned  to  fever They  will  not 

come  at  once  unless  you  go  yourself "      Vous,  she  said, 

not  tu,  and  the  vous  startled  Calyste,  who  flew  off  in  alarm. 
As  soon  as  Sabine  heard  the  outer  gate  shut  she  sprang  to  her 
feet  like  a  frightened  deer,  and  walked  round  and  round  the 
room  like  a  crazy  thing,  exclaiming,  "My  God!  my  God  ! 
my  God  !  " 

The  two  words  took  the  place  of  thought.  The  crisis  she 
had  used  as  a  pretext  really  came  on.  The  hair  on  her  head 
felt  like  so  many  eels,  made  red-hot  in  the  fire  of  nervous 
torment.  Her  heated  blood  seemed  to  her  to  have  mingled 
with  her  nerves,  and  to  be  bursting  from  every  pore.  For  a 
moment  she  was  blind.     "  I  am  dying  !  "  she  shrieked. 

At  this  fearful  cry  of  an  insulted  wife  and  mother,  her 
maid  came  in  ;  and  when  she  had  been  carried  to  her  bed  and 
had  recovered  her  sight  and  senses,  her  first  gleam  of  intelli- 
gence made  her  send  the  woman  to  fetch  her  friend  Madame 
de  Portenduere.  Sabine  felt  her  thoughts  swirling  in  her 
brain  like  straws  in  a  whirlwind. 

"  I  saw  myraids  of  them  at  once,"  she  said  afterward. 

Then  she  rang  for  the  manservant,  and  in  the  transport  of 
fever  found  strength  enough  to  write  the  following  note,  for 
she  was  possessed  by  a  mania,  she  must  be  sure  of  the  truth : 


BE  A  TRIX.  279 


To  Madame  la  Baronne  du  Guinic. 

"Dear  Mamma: — When  you  come  to  Paris,  as  you  have 
led  us  to  hope  you  may,  I  will  thank  you  in  person  for  the 
beautiful  present  by  which  you  and  Aunt  Zephirine  and  Cal- 
yste  propose  to  thank  me  for  having  done  my  duty.  I  have 
been  amply  paid  by  my  own  happiness.  I  cannot  attempt 
to  express  my  pleasure  in  this  beautiful  dressing-table :  when 
you  are  here  I  will  try  to  tell  you.  Believe  me,  when  I  dress 
before  this  glass,  I  shall  always  think,  like  the  Roman  lady, 
that  my  choicest  jewel  is  our  darling  angel,"  and  so  on. 

She  had  this  letter  posted  by  her  own  maid. 

When  the  Vicomtesse  de  Portenduere  came  in,  the  shivering 
fit  of  a  violent  fever  had  succeeded  the  first  paroxysm  of 
madness. 

"  Ursule,  I  believe  I  am  going  to  die,"  said  she. 

"  What  ails  you,  my  dear?  " 

"Tell  me,  what  did  Calyste  and  Savinien  do  yesterday 
evening  after  dinner  at  your  house?  " 

"What  dinner?"  replied  Ursule,  to  whom  her  husband 
had  as  yet  said  nothing,  not  expecting  an  immediate  inquiry. 
"Savinien  and  I  dined  alone  last  evening,  and  went  to  the 
opera  without  Calyste." 

"  Ursule,  dear  child,  in  the  name  of  yonr  love  for  Savinien, 
I  adjure  you,  keep  the  secret  of  what  I  have  asked  you  and 
what  I  will  tell  you.  You  alone  will  know  what  I  am  dying 
of — I  am  betrayed,  at  the  end  of  three  years — when  I  am  not 
yet  three-and-twenty " 

Her  teeth  chattered ;  her  eyes  were  lifeless  and  dull ;  her 
face  had  the  greenish  hue  and  surface  of  old  Venetian  glass. 

"  You — so  handsome  !     But  for  whom  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  know.  But  Calyste  has  lied  to  me — twice. 
Not  a  word !     Do  not  pity  me,  do  not  be  indignant,  affect 


280  BEATRIX. 

ignorance;  you  will  hear  who,  perhaps,  through  Savinien. 
Oh  !  yesterday's  note " 

And,  shivering  in  her  shift,  she  flew  to  a  little  cabinet  and 
took  out  the  letter. 

"  A  marquise's  coronet !  "  she  said,  getting  into  bed  again. 
"Find  out  whether  Madame  de  Rochefide  is  in  Paris.  Have 
I  a  heart  left  to  weep  or  groan  ?  Oh,  my  dear,  to  see  my 
beliefs,  my  poem,  my  idol,  my  virtue,  my  happiness,  all,  all 
destroyed,  crushed,  lost !  There  is  no  God  in  heaven  now, 
no  love  on  earth,  no  more  life  in  my  heart — nothing  !  I  do 
not  feel  sure  of  the  daylight ;  I  doubt  if  there  is  a  sun.  In 
short,  my  heart  is  suffering  so  cruelly  that  I  hardly  feel  the 
horrible  pain  in  my  breast  and  my  face.  Happily  the  child 
is  weaned.  My  milk  would  have  poisoned  him!  "  And  at 
this  thought  a  torrent  of  tears  relieved  her  eyes,  hitherto  dry. 

Pretty  Madame  de  Portenduere,  holding  the  fatal  note 
which  Sabine  had  smelt  of  for  certainty,  stood  speechless  at 
this  desperate  woe,  amazed  by  this  death  of  love,  and  unable 
to  say  anything  in  spite  of  the  incoherent  fragments  in  which 
Sabine  strove  to  tell  her  all.  Suddenly  Ursule  was  enlight- 
ened by  one  of  those  flashes  which  come  only  to  sincere  souls. 

"I  must  save  her!"  thought  she.  "Wait  until  I  return, 
Sabine,"  cried  she.     "I  will  know  the  truth." 

"  Oh,  and  I  shall  love  you  in  my  grave  !  "  cried  Sabine. 

Madame  de  Portenduere  went  to  the  Duchesse  de  Grandlieu, 
insisted  on  absolute  secrecy,  and  informed  her  as  to  the  state 
Sabine  was  in. 

"Madame,"  said  she,  in  conclusion,  "are  you  not  of 
opinion  that,  to  save  her  from  some  dreadful  illness,  or  per- 
haps even  madness — who  can  tell  ? — we  ought  to  tell  the 
doctor  everything,  and  invent  some  fables  about  that  abomin- 
able Calyste,  so  as  to  make  him  seem  innocent,  at  any  rate, 
for  the  present." 

"  My  dear  child,"  said  the  Duchess,  who  had  felt  a  chill  at 
this  revelation,  "  friendship  has  lent  you  for  the  nonce  the 


BEATRIX.  281 

experience  of  a  woman  of  my  age.     I  know  how  Sabine  wor- 
ships her  husband  ;  you  are  right,  she  may  go  mad." 

"And  she  might  lose  her  beauty,  which  would  be  worse," 
said  the  Vicomtesse. 

"  Let  us  go  at  once  !  "  cried  the  Duchess. 

They,  happily,  were  a  few  minutes  in  advance  of  the  famous 
accoucheur  Dommanget,  the  only  one  of  the  two  doctors  whom 
Calyste  had  succeeded  in  finding. 

"  Ursule  has  told  me  all,"  said  the  Duchess  to  her  daughter. 
"You  are  mistaken.  In  the  first  place,  Beatrix  is  not  in 
Paris.  As  to  what  your  husband  was  doing  yesterday,  my 
darling,  he  lost  a  great  deal  of  money,  and  does  not  know 
where  to  find  enough  to  pay  for  your  dressing-table " 

"  And  this  ?  "   interrupted  Sabine,  holding  out  the  note. 

"This!"  said  the  Duchess,  laughing,  "is  Jockey  Club 
paper.  Every  one  writes  on  coroneted  paper — the  grocers 
will  have  titles  soon " 

The  prudent  mother  tossed  the  ill-starred  document  into 
the  fire. 

When  Calyste  and  Dommanget  arrived,  the  Duchess,  who 
had  given  her  orders,  was  informed  ;  she  left  Sabine  with 
Madame  de  Portenduere,  and  met  the  doctor  and  Calyste  in 
the  drawing-room. 

"  Sabine's  life  is  in  danger,  monsieur,"  said  she  to  Calyste. 
"You  have  been  false  to  her  with  Madame  de  Rochefide  " — 
Calyste  blushed  like  a  still  decent  girl  caught  tripping — "and 
as  you  do  not  know  how  to  deceive,"  the  Duchess  went  on, 
I  "  you  were  so  clumsy  that  Sabine  guessed  everything.  You 
do  not  wish  my  daughter's  death,  I  suppose  ?  All  this,  Mon- 
sieur Dommanget,  gives  you  a  clue  to  my  daughter's  illness 
and  its  cause.  As  for  you,  Calyste,  an  old  woman  like  me 
can  understand  your  error,  but  I  do  not  forgive  you.  Such 
forgiveness  can  only  be  purchased  by  a  life  of  happiness.  If 
you  desire  my  esteem,  first  save  my  child's  life.  Then  forget 
Madame  de  Rochefide — she  is  good  for  nothing  after  the  first 


282  BEATRIX. 

time  !  Learn  to  lie,  have  the  courage  and  impudence  of  a 
criminal.  I  have  lied,  God  knows  !  I,  who  shall  be  com- 
pelled to  do  cruel  penance  for  such  mortal  sin." 

She  explained  to  him  the  fictions  she  had  just  invented. 
The  skillful  doctor,  sitting  by  the  bed,  was  studying  the 
patient's  symptoms  and  the  means  of  staving  off  the  mischief. 
While  he  was  prescribing  measures,  of  which  the  success  must 
depend  on  their  immediate  execution,  Calyste,  at  the  foot  of 
the  bed,  kept  his  eyes  fixed  on  Sabine,  trying  to  give  them 
an  expression  of  tender  anxiety. 

"Then  it  is  gambling  that  has  given  you  those  dark  marks 
round  your  eyes  ?  "  she  said  in  a  feeble  voice. 

The  words  startled  the  doctor,  the  mother,  and  Ursule, 
who  looked  at  each  other  ;   Calyste  turned  as  red  as  a  cherry. 

"That  comes  of  suckling  your  child,"  said  Dommanget, 
cleverly  but  roughly.  "  Then  husbands  are  dull,  being  so 
much  separated  from  their  wives,  they  go  to  the  club  and 
play  high.  But  do  not  lament  over  the  thirty  thousand 
francs  that  Monsieur  le  Baron  lost  last  night " 

"  Thirty  thousand  francs!"  said  Ursule  like  a  simpleton. 

"Yes,  I  know  it  for  certain,"  replied  Dommanget.  "I 
heard  this  morning  at  the  house  of  the  Duchesse  Berthe  de 
Maufrigneuse  that  you  lost  the  money  to  Monsieur  de  Trailles," 
he  added  to  Calyste.  "  How  can  you  play  with  such  a  man? 
Honestly,  Monsieur  le  Baron,  I  understand  your  being  ashamed 
of  yourself.' ' 

Calyste,  a  kind  and  generous  soul,  when  he  saw  his  mother- 
in-law — the  pious  Duchess,  the  young  Viscountess — a  happy 
wife,  and  a  selfish  old  doctor  all  lying  like  curiosity  dealers, 
understood  the  greatness  of  the  danger ;  he  shed  two  large 
tears  which  deceived  Sabine. 

"Monsieur,"  said  she,  sitting  up  in  bed,  and  looking 
wrathfully  at  Dommanget,  "  Monsieur  du  Guenic  may  lose 
thirty,  fifty,  a  hundred  thousand  francs  if  he  chooses  without 
giving  any  one  a  right  to  find  fault  with  him  or  lecture  him, 


BE  A  TRIX.  283 

It  is  better  that  Monsieur  de  Trailles  should  have  won  the 
money  from  him  than  that  we,  we,  should  have  won  from 
Monsieur  de  Trailles  !  " 

Calyste  rose  and  put  his  arm  round  his  wife's  neck.  Kissing 
her  on  both  cheeks,  he  said  in  her  ear,  "  Sabine,  you  are  an 
angel !  " 

Two  days  later  the  young  Baroness  was  considered  out  of 
danger.  On  the  following  day  Calyste  went  to  Madame  de 
Rochefide,  and  making  a  virtue  of  his  infamy — 

"Beatrix,"  said  he,  "you  owe  me  much  happiness.  I 
sacrificed  my  poor  wife  to  you,  and  she  discovered  everything. 
The  fatal  note-paper  on  which  you  made  me  write,  with  your 
initial  and  coronet  on  it,  which  I  did  not  happen  to  see — I 
saw  nothing  but  you  !  The  letter  B,  happily,  was  worn  away  ; 
but  the  scent  you  left  clinging  to  me,  the  lies  in  which  I  en- 
tangled myself  like  a  fool,  have  ruined  my  happiness.  Sabine 
has  been  at  death's  door ;  the  milk  went  to  her  brain,  she  has 
erysipelas,  and  will  perhaps  be  disfigured  for  life " 

Beatrix,  while  listening  to  this  harangue,  had  a  face  of  Arctic 
coldness,  enough  to  freeze  the  Seine  if  she  had  looked  at  it. 

"  Well,  so  much  the  better;  it  may  bleach  her  a  little,  per- 
haps." And  Beatrix,  as  dry  as  her  own  bones,  as  variable  as 
her  complexion,  as  sharp  as  her  voice,  went  on  in  this  tone,  a 
tirade  of  cruel  epigrams. 

There  can  be  no  greater  blunder  than  for  a  husband  to  talk 
to  his  mistress  of  his  wife,  if  she  is  virtuous,  unless  it  be  to  talk 
to  his  wife  of  his  mistress  if  she  is  handsome.  But  Calyste 
had  not  yet  had  the  sort  of  Parisian  education  which  may  be 
called  the  good  manners  of  the  passions.  He  could  neither 
tell  his  wife  a  lie  nor  tell  his  mistress  the  truth — an  indispen- 
sable training  to  enable  a  man  to  manage  women.  So  he  was 
obliged  to  appeal  to  all  the  powers  of  passion  for  two  long 
hours,  to  wring  from  Beatrix  the  forgiveness  he  begged,  denied 
him  by  an  angel  who  raised  her  eyes  to  heaven  not  to  see  the 


284  BE  A  TRIX. 

culprit,  and  who  uttered  the  reasons  peculiar  to  marquises  in 
a  voice  choked  with  well-feigned  tears,  that  she  furtively  wiped 
away  with  the  lace  edge  of  her  handkerchief. 

"  You  can  talk  to  me  of  your  wife  the  very  day  after  I  have 
yielded  !  Why  not  say  at  once  that  she  is  a  pearl  of  virtue  ! 
I  know,  she  admires  your  beauty  !  That  is  what  I  call  de- 
pravity !  I — I  love  your  soul  !  For  I  assure  you,  my  dear 
boy,  you  are  hideous  compared  with  some  shepherds  of  the 
Roman  Campagna ,"  etc.,  etc. 

This  tone  may  seem  strange,  but  it  was  the  part  of  a  system 
deliberately  planned  by  Beatrix.  In  her  third  incarnation — 
for  a  woman  completely  changes  with  each  fresh  passion — she 
is  far  advanced  in  fraud — that  is  the  only  word  that  can  de- 
scribe the  result  of  the  experience  gained  in  such  adventures. 
The  Marquise  de  Rochefide  had  sat  in  judgment  on  herself  in 
front  of  her  mirror.  Clever  women  have  no  delusions  about 
themselves;  they  count  their  wrinkles;  they  watch  the  begin- 
ning of  crows'-feet;  they  note  the  appearance  of  every  speck 
in  their  skin  ;  they  know  themselves  by  heart,  and  show  it  too 
plainly  by  the  immense  pains  they  take  to  preserve  their  beauty. 
And  so,  to  contend  against  a  beautiful  young  wife,  to  triumph 
over  her  six  days  a  week,  Beatrix  sought  to  win  by  the  weapons 
of  the  courtesan.  Without  confessing  to  herself  the  baseness 
of  her  conduct,  and  carried  away  to  use  such  means  by  a  Turk- 
like passion  for  the  handsome  young  man,  she  resolved  to 
make  him  believe  that  he  was  clumsy,  ugly,  ill-made,  and  to 
behave  as  if  she  hated  him. 

There  is  no  more  successful  method  with  men  of  a  domi- 
neering nature.  To  them  the  conquest  of  such  disdain  is  the 
triumph  of  the  first  day  renewed  on  every  morrow.  It  is 
more ;  it  is  flattery  hidden  under  the  mask  of  aversion,  and 
owing  to  it  the  charm  and  truth  which  underlie  all  the  meta- 
morphoses invented  by  the  great  nameless  poets.  Does  not  a 
man  then  say  to  himself,  "I  am  irresistible!"  or  "I  must 
love  her  well,  since  I  conquer   her   repugnance!  "     If  you 


BE  A  TRIX.  285 

deny  this  principle,  which  flirts  and  courtesans  of  every  social 
grade  discovered  long  ago,  you  must  discredit  the  pursuers  of 
science,  the  inquirers  into  secrets,  who  have  long  been  re- 
pulsed in  their  duel  with  hidden  causes. 

Beatrix  seconded  her  use  of  contempt  as  a  moral  incitement 
by  a  constant  comparison  between  her  comfortable,  poetic 
home  and  the  Hotel  du  Guenic.  Every  deserted  wife  neglects 
her  home  out  of  deep  discouragement.  Foreseeing  this, 
Madame  de  Rochefide  began  covert  innuendoes  as  to  the 
luxury  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  which  she  stigmatized 
as  absurd.  The  reconciliation  scene,  when  Beatrix  made 
Calyste  swear  to  hate  the  wife  who,  as  she  said,  was  playing 
the  farce  of  spilt  milk,  took  place  in  a  perfect  bower,  where 
she  put  herself  into  attitudes  in  the  midst  of  beautiful  flowers 
and  jardinieres  of  lavish  costliness.  She  carried  the  art  of 
trifles,  of  fashionable  toys,  to  an  extreme.  Beatrix,  sunk  into 
contempt  since  Conti's  desertion,  was  bent  on  gaining  such 
fame  as  may  be  had  by  sheer  perversity.  The  woes  of  a 
young  wife,  a  Grandlieu,  rich  and  lovely,  were  to  build  her  a 
pedestal. 

When  a  woman  reappears  in  society  after  nursing  her  first 
child,  she  comes  out  again  improved  in  charm  and  beauty. 
If  this  phase  of  maternity  can  rejuvenate  even  women  no 
longer  in  their  first  youth,  it  gives  young  wives  a  splendid 
freshness,  a  cheerful  activity,  a  brio  of  life — if  we  may  apply 
to  the  body  a  word  which  the  Italians  have  invented  for  the 
mind.  But  while  trying  to  resume  the  pleasant  habits  of  the 
honeymoon,  Sabine  did  not  find  the  same  Calyste.  The  un- 
happy girl  watched  him  instead  of  abandoning  herself  to 
happiness.  She  expected  the  fatal  perfume,  and  she  smelt  it ; 
and  she  no  longer  confided  in  Ursule,  nor  in  her  mother,  who 
had  so  charitably  deceived  her.  She  wanted  certainty,  and 
she  had  not  long  to  wait  for  it.  Certainty  is  never  coy ;  it  is 
like  the  sun,  we  soon  need  to  pull  down  the  blinds  before  it. 
In  love  it  is  a  repetition  of  the  fable  of  the  Woodman  calling 


286  BEATRIX. 

on  Death.  We  wish  that  certainty  would  blind  us.  One 
morning,  a  fortnight  after  the  first  catastrophe,  Sabine  received 
this  dreadful  letter : 

To  Madame  la  Baronne  du  Guenic. 

"  Gu£rande. 

"My  dear  Daughter: — My  sister  Zephirine  and  I  are 
lost  in  conjectures  as  to  the  dressing-table  mentioned  in  your 
letter;  I  am  writing  about  it  to  Calyste,  and  beg  your  forgive- 
ness for  my  ignorance.  You  cannot  doubt  our  affection.  We 
are  saving  treasure  for  you.  Thanks  to  Mademoiselle  de  Pen- 
HoeTs  advice  as  to  the  management  of  your  land,  you  will  in 
a  few  years  find  yourself  possessed  of  a  considerable  capital 
without  having  to  diminish  your  expenditure. 

"Your  letter,  dearest  daughter — whom  I  love  as  much  as  if 
I  had  borne  you  and  fed  you  at  my  own  breast — surprised  me 
by  its  brevity,  and  especially  by  your  making  no  mention  of 
my  dear  little  Calyste  ;  you  had  nothing  to  tell  me  about  the 
elder  Calyste;  he,  I  know,  is  happy,"  etc. 

Sabine  wrote  across  this  letter,  "Brittany  is  too  noble  to  lie 
with  one  accord 7"  and  laid  it  on  Calyste's  writing-table.  He 
found  it  and  read  it.  After  recognizing  Sabine's  writing  in 
the  line  across  it,  he  threw  it  into  the  fire,  determined  never 
to  have  seen  it.  Sabine  spent  a  whole  week  in  misery,  of 
which  the  secret  may  be  understood  by  those  celestial  or 
hermit  souls  that  have  never  been  touched  by  the  wing  of  the 
fallen  angel.     Calyste's  silence  terrified  Sabine. 

"I,  who  ought  to  be  all  sweetness,  all  joy  to  him — I  have 
vexed  him,  hurt  him  !  My  virtue  is  become  hateful ;  I  have 
perhaps  humiliated  my  idol,"  said  she  to  herself. 

These  thoughts  ploughed  furrows  in  her  soul.  She  thought 
of  asking  forgiveness  for  this  fault,  but  certainty  brought  her 
fresh  proofs. 


BE  A  TRIX.  287 

Beatrix,  insolently  bold,  wrote  to  Calyste  one  day  at  his 
own  house.  The  letter  was  put  into  Madame  du  Guenic's 
hands ;  she  gave  it  to  her  husband  unopened,  but  she  said, 
with  death  in  her  soul,  and  in  a  broken  voice — 

"  My  dear,  this  note  is  from  the  Jockey  Club;  I  know  the 
scent  and  the  paper." 

Calyste  blushed  and  put  the  letter  in  his  pocket. 

"  Why  do  you  not  read  it  ?  " 

"  I  know  what  they  want." 

The  young  wife  sat  down.  She  did  not  get  an  attack  of 
fever,  she  did  not  cry,  but  she  felt  one  of  those  surges  of  rage 
which  in  such  feeble  creatures  bring  forth  monsters  of  crime, 
which  arm  them  with  arsenic  for  themselves  or  for  their  rivals. 
Little  Calyste  was  presently  brought  to  her,  and  she  took  him 
on  her  lap ;  the  child,  but  just  weaned,  turned  to  find  the 
breast  under  her  dress. 

"  He  remembers  !  "  said  she  in  a  whisper. 

•Calyste  went  to  his  room  to  read  the  letter.  When  he  was 
gone  the  poor  young  cr?ature  burst  into  tears,  such  tears  as 
women  shed  when  they  are  alone.  Pain,  like  pleasure,  has 
its  initiatory  stage ;  the  first  anguish,  like  that  of  which 
Sabine  had  so  nearly  died,  can  never  recur,  any  more  than  a 
first  experience  of  any  kind.  It  is  the  first  wedge  of  the 
torture  of  the  heart ;  the  others  are  expected,  the  wringing 
of  the  nerves  is  a  known  thing,  the  capital  of  strength  has 
accumulated  a  deposit  for  firm  resistance.  And  Sabine,  sure 
now  of  the  worst,  sat  by  the  fire  for  three  hours  with  her  boy 
on  her  knee,  and  was  quite  startled  when  Gasselin,  now  their 
house-servant,  came  to  announce  that  dinner  was  on  the  table. 

"  Let  monsieur  know." 

"  Monsieur  is  not  dining  at  home,  Madame  la  Baronne." 

Who  can  tell  all  the  misery  for  a  young  woman  of  three- 
and-twenty,  the  torture  of  finding  herself  alone  in  the  midst 
of  a  vast  dining-room,  in  an  ancient  house,  served  by  silent 
men  and  in  such  circumstances  ? 


288  BEATRIX. 

"  Order  the  carriage,"  she  said  suddenly  ;  "lam  going  to 
the  opera." 

She  dressed  splendidly ;  she  meant  to  show  herself  alone, 
and  smiling  like  a  happy  woman.  In  the  midst  of  her  re- 
morse for  the  endorsement  on  that  letter  she  was  determined 
to  triumph,  to  bring  Calyste  back  to  her  by  the  greatest  gen- 
tleness, by  wifely  virtues,  by  the  meekness  of  a  Paschal  lamb. 
She  would  lie  to  all  Paris.  She  loved  him,  she  loved  him  as 
courtesans  love,  or  angels,  with  pride  and  with  humility. 

But  the  opera  was  "  Othello."  When  Rubini  sang  //  mio 
cor  si  divide,  she  fled.  Music  is  often  more  powerful  than  the 
poet  and  the  actor,  the  two  most  formidable  natures  com- 
bined. Savinien  de  Portenduere  accompanied  Sabine  to  the 
portico  and  put  her  into  her  carriage,  unable  to  account  for 
her  precipitate  escape. 

Madame  du  Guenic  now  entered  on  a  period  of  sufferings 
such  as  only  the  highest  classes  can  know.  You  who  are 
poor,  envious,  wretched,  when  you  see  on  ladies'  arms  those 
snakes  with  diamond  heads,  those  necklaces  and  pins,  tell 
yourselves  that  those  vipers  sting,  that  those  necklaces  have 
poisoned  teeth,  that  those  light  bonds  cut  into  the  tender 
flesh  to  the  very  quick.  All  this  luxury  must  be  paid  for.  In 
Sabine's  position  women  can  curse  the  pleasures  of  wealth; 
they  cease  to  see  the  gilding  of  their  rooms,  the  silk  of  sofas 
is  as  tow,  exotic  flowers  as  nettles,  perfumes  stink,  miracles 
of  cookery  scrape  the  throat  like  barley-bread,  and  life  has 
the  bitterness  of  the  Dead  Sea. 

Two  or  three  instances  will  so  plainly  show  the  reaction 
of  a  room  or  of  a  woman  on*  happiness,  that  every  one  who 
has  experienced  it  will  be  reminded  of  their  home-life. 

Sabine,  warned  of  the  dreadful  truth,  studied  her  husband 
when  he  was  going  out,  to  guess  at  the  day's  prospects. 
With  what  a  surge  of  suppressed  fury  does  a  woman  fling 
herself  on  to  the  red-hot  pikes  of  such  torture?  What  joy 
for  Sabine  when  he  did  not  go  to  the  Rue  de  Courcelles  J 


BE  A  TRIX.  289 

When  he  came  in  she  would  look  at  his  brow,  his  hair, 
his  eyes,  his  expression  and  attitude,  with  a  horrible  interest 
in  trifles,  arid  the  studious  observation  of  the  most  recondite 
details  of  his  dress,  by  which  a  woman  loses  her  self-respect 
and  dignity.  These  sinister  investigations,  buried  in  her 
heart,  turned  sour  there  and  corroded  the  slender  roots, 
whence  grow  the  blue  flowers  of  holy  confidence,  the  golden 
stars  of  saintly  love,  all  the  blossoms  of  memory. 

One  day  Calyste  looked  around  at  everything  with  ill- 
humor,  but  he  stayed  at  home.  Sabine  was  coaxing  and 
humble,  cheerful  and  amusing. 

"You  are  cross  with  me,  Calyste;  am  I  not  a  good  wife? 
What  is  there  here  that  you  do  not  like?  " 

"  All  the  rooms  are  so  cold  and  bare,"  said  he.  "You  do 
not  understand  this  kind  of  thing." 

"What  is  wanting?" 

"  Flowers " 

"  Very  good,"  said  Sabine  to  herself;  "  Madame  de  Roche- 
fide  is  fond  of  flowers,  it  would  seem." 

Two  days  later  the  rooms  at  the  Hotel  du  Guenic  were  com- 
pletely altered.  No  house  in  Paris  could  pride  itself  on  finer 
flowers  than  those  that  decorated  it. 

Some  time  after  this  Calyste,  one  evening  after  dinner, 
complained  of  the  cold.  He  shivered  in  his  chair,  looking 
about  him  to  see  whence  the  draught  came,  and  evidently 
seeking  something  close  about  him.  It  was  some  time  before 
Sabine  could  guess  the  meaning  of  this  new  whim,  for  the  house 
was  fitted  with  a  hot-air  furnace  to  warm  the  staircase,  ante- 
rooms and  passages,  Finally,  after  three  days'  meditation,  it 
struck  her  that  her  rival  had  a  screen,  no  doubt,  so  as  to  pro- 
duce the  subdued  light  that  was  favorable  to  the  deterioration 
of  her  face  ;  so  Sabine  purchased  a  screen  made  of  glass,  and 
of  Jewish  magnificence. 

"Which  way  will  the  wind  blow  now?  "  she  wondered. 

This  was  not  the  end  of  the  mistress'  indirect  criticism. 
19 


290  BEATRIX. 

Calyste  ate  so  little  at  home  as  to  drive  Sabine  crazy; 
he  sent  away  his  plate  after  nibbling  two  or  three  mouth- 
fuls. 

"Is  it  not  nice?"  asked  Sabine,  in  despair,  seeing  all 
the  pains  wasted  which  she  devoted  to  her  conferences  with 
the  cook. 

"I  do  not  say  so,  my  darling,"  replied  Calyste,  without 
annoyance.     "I  am  not  hungry,  that  is  all." 

A  wife  given  up  to  a  legitimate  passion  and  to  such  a  con- 
test as  this,  feels  a  sort  of  fury  in  her  desire  to  triumph 
over  her  rival,  and  often  outruns  the  mark  even  in  the 
most  secret  regions  of  married  life.  This  cruel  struggle, 
fierce  and  ceaseless,  over  the  visible  and  outward  facts  of 
home  life  was  carried  on  with  equal  frenzy  over  the  feelings 
of  the  heart.  Sabine  studied  her  attitude  and  dress,  and 
watched  herself  in  the  smallest  trivialities  of  love. 

This  matter  of  the  cookery  went  on  for  nearly  a  month.  * 
Sabine,  with  the  help  of  Mariotte  and  Gasselin,  invented 
stage  tricks  to  discover  what  dishes  Madame  de  Rochefide 
served  up  for  Calyste.  Gasselin  took  the  place  of  the  coach- 
man, who  fell  ill  to  order,  and  was  thus  enabled  to  make 
friends  with  Beatrix's  cook;  so  at  last  Sabine  could  give 
Calyste  the  same  fare,  only  better ;  but  again  she  saw  him 
give  himself  airs  over  it. 

"  What  is  wanting?"  she  said. 

"Nothing,"  he  answered,  looking  round  the  table  for 
something  that  was  not  there. 

"  Ah  !  "  cried  Sabine  to  herself,  as  she  woke  next  morning, 
"Calyste  is  pining  for  powdered  cockroaches*  and  all  the 
English  condiments  which  are  sold  by  the  druggist  in  cruets; 
Madame  de  Rochefide  has  accustomed  him  to  all  sorts  or 
spices." 

She  bought  an  English  cruet-stand  and  its  scorching  con- 

*  Balzac  has  hannetons,  cockchafers.  It  was  an  old  joke  that  Soy  was 
made  of  cockroaches. — Translator. 


BE  A  TRIX.  291 

tents;  but  she  could  not  pursue  her  discoveries  down  to  every 
dainty  devised  by  her  rival. 

This  phase  lasted  for  several  months;  nor  need  we  wonder 
when  we  remember  all  the  attractions  of  such  a  contest.  It 
is  life ;  with  all  its  wounds  and  pangs,  it  is  preferable  to  the 
blank  gloom  of  disgust,  to  the  poison  of  contempt,  to  the 
blankness  of  abdication,  to  the  death  of  the  heart  that  we 
call  indifference.  Still,  all  Sabine's  courage  oozed  out  one 
evening  when  she  appeared  dressed,  as  women  only  dress  by 
a  sort  of  inspiration,  in  the  hope  of  winning  the  victory  over 
another,  and  when  Calyste  said  with  a  laugh — 

"  Do  what  you  will,  Sabine,  you  will  never  be  anything  but 
a  lovely  Andalusian  !  " 

"Alas  !  "  said  she,  sinking  on  to  her  sofa,  "I  can  never 
be  fair.  .But  if  this  goes  on,  I  know  that  I  shall  soon  be  five- 
and-thirty." 

She  refused  to  go  to  the  Italian  opera ;  she  meant  to  stay 
in  her  room  all  the  evening.  When  she  was  alone  she  tore  the 
flowers  from  her  hair  and  stamped  upon  them,  she  undressed, 
trampled  her  gown,  her  sash,  all  her  finery  under  foot,  exactly 
like  a  goat  caught  in  a  loop  of  its  tether,  which  never  ceases 
struggling  till  death.  Then  she  went  to  bed.  The  maid  pres- 
ently came  in.     Imagine  her  surprise  ! 

"It  is  nothing,"  said  Sabine.      "  It  is  monsieur." 

Unhappy  wives  know  this  superb  vanity,  these  falsehoods, 
where,  of  two  kinds  of  shame  both  in  arms,  the  more 
womanly  wins  the  day. 

Sabine  was  growing  thin  under  these  terrible  agitations, 
grief  ate  into  her  soul ;  but  she  never  forgot  the  part  she  had 
forced  on  herself.  A  sort  of  fever  kept  her  up;  her  life  sent 
back  to  her  throat  the  bitter  words  suggested  to  her  by  grief; 
she  sheathed  the  lightnings  of  her  fine  black  eyes  and  made 
them  soft,  even  humble. 

Her  fading  health  was  soon  perceptible.     The  Duchess,  an 


292  BEA  TRIX. 

admirable  mother,  though  her  piety  had  become  more  and 
more  Portuguese,  thought  there  was  some  mortal  disease  in  the 
really  sickly  condition  which  Sabine  evidently  encouraged. 
She  knew  of  the  acknowledged  intimacy  of  Calyste  and 
Beatrix.  She  took  care  to  have  her  daughter  with  her  to  try 
to  heal  her  wounded  feelings,  and,  above  all,  to  save  her 
from  her  daily  martyrdom  ;  but  Sabine  for  a  long  time  re- 
mained persistently  silent  as  to  her  woes,  fearing  some  inter- 
vention between  herself  and  Calyste.  She  declared  she  was 
happy  !  Having  exhausted  sorrow,  she  fell  back  on  her  pride, 
on  all  her  virtues. 

At  the  end  of  a  month,  however,  of  being  petted  by  her 
sister  Clotilde  and  her  mother,  she  confessed  her  griefs,  told 
them  all  her  sufferings,  and  cursed  life,  saying  that  she  looked 
forward  to  death  with  delirious  joy.  She  desired- Clotilde, 
who  meant  never  to  marry,  to  be  a  mother  to  little  Calyste, 
the  loveliest  child  any  royal  race  need  wish  for  as  its  heir- 
presumptive. 

One  evening,  sitting  with  her  youngest  sister  AthenaVs — 
who  was  to  be  married  to  the  Vicomte  de  Grandlieu  after 
Lent — with  Clotilde  and  the  Duchess,  Sabine  uttered  the  last 
cry  of  her  anguish  of  heart,  wrung  from  her  by  the  extremity 
of  her  last  humiliation. 

"Athenai's,"  said  she,  when  at  about  eleven  o'clock  the 
young  Vicomte  Juste  de  Grandlieu  took  his  leave,  "  you  are 
going  to  be  married ;  profit  by  my  example !  Keep  your 
best  qualities  to  yourself  as  if  they  were  a  crime,  resist  the 
temptation  to  display  them  in  order  to  please  Juste.  Be  calm, 
dignified,  cold  ;  measure  out  the  happiness  you  give  in  pro- 
portion to  what  you  receive  !  It  is  mean,  but  it  is  necessary. 
You  see,  I  am  ruined  by  my  merits.  All  I  feel  within  me 
that  is  the  best  of  me,  that  is  fine,  holy,  noble — all  my  virtues 
have  been  rocks  on  which  my  happiness  is  shipwrecked.  I 
have  ceased  to  be  attractive  because  I  am  not  six-and-thirty  ! 


BE  A  TRIX.  293 

In  some  men's  eyes  youth  is  a  defect !     There  is  no  guess- 
work in  a  guileless  face. 

"I  laugh  honestly,  and  that  is  quite  wrong  when,  to  be 
fascinating,  you  ought  to  be  able  to  elaborate  the  melan- 
choly, suppressed  smile  of  the  fallen  angels  who  are  obliged 
to  hide  their  long  yellow  teeth.  A  fresh  complexion  is  so 
monotonous  ;  far  preferable  is  a  doll's  waxen  surface,  com- 
pounded of  rouge,  spermaceti,  and  cold-cream.  I  am  straight- 
forward, and  double  dealing  is  more  pleasing  !  I  am  frankly 
in  love  like  an  honest  woman,  and  I  ought  to  be  trained  to 
tricks  and  manoeuvres  like  a  country  actress.  I  am  intoxi- 
cated with  the  delight  of  having  one  of  the  most  charming 
men  in  France  for  my  husband,  and  I  tell  him  sincerely  how 
fine  a  gentleman  he  is,  how  gracefully  he  moves,  how  hand- 
some I  think  him  ;  to  win  him  I  ought  to  look  away  with 
affected  aversion,  to  hate  love-making,  to  tell  him  that  his  air 
of  distinction  is  simply  an  unhealthy  pallor  and  the  figure  of 
a  consumptive  patient,  to  cry  up  the  shoulders  of  the  Farnese 
Hercules,  to  make  him  angry,  keep  him  at  a  distance  as 
though  a  struggle  were  needed  to  hide  from  him  at  the  mo- 
ment of  happiness  some  imperfection  which  might  destroy 
love.  I  am  so  unlucky  as  to  be  able  to  admire  a  fine  thing 
without  striving  to  give  myself  importance  by  bitter  and  envi- 
ous criticism  of  everything  glorious  in  poetry  or  beauty.  I 
do  not  want  to  be  told  in  verse  and  in  prose  by  Canalis  and 
Nathan  that  I  have  a  superior  intellect  !  I  am  a  mere  simple 
girl  ;  I  see  no  one  but  Calyste  ! 

"  If  I  had  only  run  over  all  the  world  as  she  has ;  if,  like 
her,  I  had  said,  '  I  love  you,'  in  every  European  tongue,  I 
should  be  made  much  of,  and  pitied,  and  adored,  and  could 
serve  him  up  a  Macedonian  banquet  of  cosmopolitan  loves  ! 
A  man  does  not  thank  you  for  your  tenderness  till  you  have 
set  it  off  by  contrast  with  malignity.     So  I,  a  well-born  wife, 

must  learn  all  impurity,  the  interested  charms  of  a  harlot  \ 

And  Calyste.  the  dupe  of  this  grimacing  ! Oh,  mother  ! 


294  BEATRIX. 

oh,  my  dear  Clotilde  !  I  am  stricken  to  death.  My  pride  is 
a  deceptive  segis ;  I  am  defenseless  against  sorrow ;  I  still 
love  my  husband  like  a  fool,  and  to  bring  him  back  to  me  I 
need  to  borrow  the  keen  wit  of  indifference." 

"  Silly  child,"  whispered  Clotilde,  "pretend  that  you  are 
bent  on  vengeance." 

"  I  mean  to  die  blameless,  without  even  the  appearance  of 
wrong-doing,"  replied  Sabine.  "  Our  vengeance  should  be 
worthy  of  our  love." 

"  My  child,"  said  the  Duchess,  "a  mother  should  look  on 
life  with  colder  eyes  than  yours.  Love  is  not  the  end  but  the 
means  of  family  life.  Do  not  imitate  that  poor  little  Baronne 
de  Macumer.  Excessive  passion  is  barren  and  fatal.  And 
God  sends  us  our  afflictions  for  reasons  of  His  own  which  we 
cannot  understand. 

"Now  that  Athenais'  marriage  is  a  settled  thing,  I  shall 
have  time  to  attend  to  you.  I  have  already  discussed  the 
delicate  position  in  which  you  are  placed  with  your  father  and 
the  Due  de  Chaulieu  and  d'Ajuda.  We  shall  find  means  to 
bring  Calyste  back  to  you." 

"  With  the  Marquise  de  Rochefide  there  is  no  cause  for 
despair,"  said  Clotilde,  smiling  at  her  sister.  "She  does 
not  keep  her  adorers  long." 

"  D'Ajuda,  my  darling,  was  Monsieur  de  Rochefide's 
brother-in-law.  If  our  good  confessor  approves  of  the  little 
manoeuvres  we  must  achieve  to  insure  the  success  of  the  plan 
I  have  submitted  to  your  father,  I  will  guarantee  Calyste's 
return.  My  conscience  loathes  the  use  of  such  methods,  and 
I  will  lay  them  before  the  Abbe  Brossette.  We  need  not 
wait,  my  child,  till  you  are  in  extremis  to  come  to  your  assist- 
ance. Keep  up  your  hopes.  Your  grief  this  evening  is  so 
great  that  I  have  let  out  my  secret ;  I  cannot  bear  not  to  give 
you  a  little  encouragement." 

"Will  it  cause  Calyste  any  grief?"  asked  Sabine,  looking 
anxiously  at  the  Duchess. 


BEATRIX.  295 

"Bless  me,  shall  I  be  such  another  fool?"  asked  Athena'is 
simply. 

"  Oh  !  child,  you  cannot  know  the  straits  into  which  virtue 
can  plunge  us  when  she  allows  herself  to  be  overruled  by 
love?"  replied  Sabine,  so  bewildered  with  grief  that  she  fell 
into  a  vein  of  poetry. 

The  words  were  spoken  with  such  intense  bitterness  that  the 
Duchess,  enlightened  by  her  daughter's  tone,  accent,  and  look, 
understood  that  there  was  some  unconfessed  trouble. 

"Girls,  it  is  midnight;  go  to  bed,"  said  she  to  the  two 
others,  whose  eyes  were  sparkling. 

"And  am  I  in  the  way,  too,  in  spite  of  my  six-and-thirty 
years?"  asked  Clotilde  ironically.  And  while  Athenai's  was 
kissing  her  mother,  she  whispered  in  Sabine's  ear — 

"  You  shall  tell  me  all  about  it.  I  will  dine  with  you  to- 
morrow. If  mamma  is  afraid  of  compromising  her  con- 
science, I  myself  will  rescue  Calyste  from  the  hands  of  the 
infidels." 

"Well,  Sabine,"  said  the  Duchess,  leading  her  daughter 
into  her  bedroom,  "tell  me,  my  child,  what  is  the  new 
trouble?" 

"  Oh,  mother,  I  am  done  for  !  " 

"Why?" 

"I  wanted  to  triumph  over  that  horrible  woman;  I  suc- 
ceeded, I  have  another  child  coming,  and  Calyste  loves  her 
so  vehemently  that  I  foresee  being  absolutely  deserted.  When 
she  has  proof  of  this  infidelity  to  her  she  will  be  furious.  Oh, 
I  am  suffering  such  torments  that  I  must  die.  I  know  when 
he  is  going  to  her,  know  it  by  his  glee  ;  then  his  surliness 
shows  me  when  he  has  left  her.  In  short,  he  makes  no  secret 
of  it ;  he  cannot  endure  me.  Her  influence  over  him  is  as 
unwholesome  as  she  is  herself,  body  and  soul.  You  will  see ; 
as  her  reward  for  making  up  some  quarrel,  she  will  insist  on  a 
public  rupture  with  me,  a  breach  like  her  own ;  she  will  carry 
him  off  to  Switzerland,  perhaps,  or  to  Italy.     He  has  been 


296  BE  A  TRIX. 

saying  that  it  is  ridiculous  to  know  nothing  of  Europe,  and  I 
can  guess  what  these  hints  mean,  thrown  out  as  a  warning. 
If  Calyste  is  not  cured  within  the  next  three  months,  I  do  not 
know  what  will  come  of  it — I  shall  kill  myself,  I  know !  " 

"  Unhappy  child  !  And  your  son  ?  Suicide  is  a  mortal 
sin." 

"But  you  do  not  understand — she  might  bear  him  a  child; 

and  if  Calyste  loved  that  woman's  more  than  mine Oh  ! 

this  is  the  end  of  my  patience  and  resignation." 

She  dropped  on  a  chair;  she  had  poured  out  the  inmost 
thoughts  of  her  heart ;  she  had  no  hidden  pang  left ;  and  sor- 
row is  like  the  iron  prop  that  sculptors  place  inside  a  clay 
figure — it  is  supporting,  it  is  a  power. 

"  Well,  well,  go  home  now,  poor  little  thing  !  Face  to  face 
with  so  much  suffering,  perhaps  the  abbe  will  give  me  absolu- 
tion for  the  venial  sins  we  are  forced  to  commit  by  the  trickery 
of  the  world.  Leave  me,  daughter,"  she  said,  going  to  her 
prie-Dieu;  "  I  will  beseech  the  Lord  and  the  blessed  Virgin 
more  especially  for  you.  Above  all,  do  not  neglect  your 
religious  duties  if  you  hope  for  success." 

"  Succeed  as  we  may,  mother,  we  can  only  save  the  family 
honor.  Calyste  has  killed  the  sacred  fervor  of  love  in  me  by 
exhausting  all  my  powers,  even  of  suffering.  What  a  honey- 
moon was  that  in  which  from  the  first  day  I  was  bitterly  con- 
scious of  his  retrospective  adultery  !  " 

At  about  one  in  the  afternoon  of  the  following  day  one  of 
the  priests  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain — a  man  distin- 
guished among  the  clergy  of  Paris,  designate  as  a  bishop  in 
1840,  but  who  had  three  times  refused  a  see — the  Abbe  Bros- 
sette,  was  crossing  the  courtyard  of  the  Hotel  Grandlieu  with 
the  peculiar  gait  one  must  call  the  ecclesiastical  gait,  so  ex- 
pressive is  it  of  prudence,  mystery,  calmness,  gravity,  and 
dignity  itself.  He  was  a  small,  lean  man,  about  fifty  years 
of  age,  with  a  face  as  white  as  an  old  woman's,  chilled  by 


LEAVE   ME,    DAUGHTER,"   SHE   SAID,   GOING   TO   HER 
PRIE-DIEU. 


BEATRIX.  297 

priestly  fasting,  furrowed  by  all  the  sufferings  he  made  his 
own.  Black  eyes,  alight  with  faith,  but  softened  by  an  ex- 
pression that  was  mysterious  rather  than  mystical,  gave  life  to 
this  apostolic  countenance.  He  almost  smiled  as  he  went  up 
the  steps,  so  little  did  he  believe  in  the  enormity  of  the  case 
for  which  his  penitent  had  sent  for  him  ;  but,  as  the  Duchess' 
hand  was  a  sieve  for  alms,  she  was  well  worth  the  time  her 
guileless  confessions  stole  from  the  serious  troubles  of  his 
parish.  On  hearing  him  announced,  the  Duchess  arose  and 
went  forward  a  few  steps  to  meet  him,  an  honor  she  did  to 
none  but  cardinals,  bishops,  priests  of  every  grade,  duchesses 
older  than  herself,  and  personages  of  the  blood  royal. 

"My  dear  abbe,"  said  she,  pointing  to  an  armchair,  and 
speaking  in  a  low  tone,  "I  require  the  authority  of  your  ex- 
perience before  I  embark  on  a  rather  nasty  intrigue,  from 
which,  however,  I  hope  for  a  good  result ;  I  wish  to  learn 
from  you  whether  I  shall  find  the  way  of  salvation  very  thorny 
in  consequence." 

"  Madame  la  Duchesse,"  said  the  Abbe  Brossette,  "do  not 
mix  up  spiritual  and  worldly  matters ;  they  are  often  irrecon- 
cilable.    In  the  first  place,  what  is  this  business?" 

"  My  daughter  Sabine,  you  know,  is  dying  of  grief.  Mon- 
sieur du  Guenic  neglects  her  for  Madame  de  Rochefide." 

"It  is  terrible — a  very  serious  matter;  but  you  know  what 
the  beloved  Saint-Francois  de  Sales  says  of  such  a  case.  And 
remember  Madame  de  Guyon,  who  bewailed  the  lack  of  mys- 
ticism in  the  proofs  of  conjugal  love ;  she  would  have  been 
only  too  glad  to  find  a  Madame  de  Rochefide  for  her  husband." 

"  Sabine  is  only  too  meek,  she  is  only  too  completely 
the  Christian  wife;  but  she  has  not  the  smallest  taste  for 
mysticism." 

"  Poor  young  thing  !  "  said  the  cure  slily.  "And  what  is 
your  plan  for  remedying  the  mischief?  " 

"  I  have  been  so  sinful,  my  dear  director,  as  to  think  that 
I  might  let  loose  at  her  a  smart  little  gentleman,  willful,  and 


298  BEATRIX. 

stocked  with  evil  characteristics,  who  will  certainly  get  my 
son-in-law  out  of  the  way." 

"  Daughter,"  said  he,  stroking  his  chin,  "  we  are  not  in  the 
tribunal  of  the  repentant ;  I  need  not  speak  as  your  judge. 
From  a  worldly  point  of  view,  I  confess  it  would  be  final " 

"  Such  a  proceeding  strikes  me  as  truly  odious  !  "  she  put  in. 

"And  why?  It  is,  no  doubt,  far  more  the  part  of  a  Chris- 
tian to  snatch  a  woman  from  her  evil  ways  than  to  push  her 
forward  in  them ;  still,  when  she  has  already  gone  so  far  as 
Madame  de  Rochefide,  it  is  not  the  hand  of  man,  but  the 
hand  of  God,  that  can  rescue  the  sinner.  She  needs  a  special 
sign  from  heaven." 

"  Thank  you,  father,  for  your  indulgence,"  said  the  Duchess. 
"  But  we  must  remember  that  my  son-in-law  is  brave  and  a 
Breton ;  he  was  heroic  at  the  time  of  that  poor  Madame's 
attempted  rising.  Now,  if  the  young  scapegrace  who  should 
undertake  to  charm  Madame  de  Rochefide  were  to  fall  out 
with  Calyste,  and  a  duel  should  ensue " 

"  There,  Madame  la  Duchesse,  you  show  your  wisdom ; 
this  proves  that  in  such  devious  courses  we  always  find  some 
stumbling-block. ' ' 

"  But  I  hit  upon  a  means,  my  dear  abbe,  of  doing  good,  of 
rescuing  Madame  de  Rochefide  from  the  fatal  path  she  is 
following,  of  bringing  Calyste  back  to  his  wife,  and  of  saving 
a  poor  wandering  soul  perhaps  from  hell " 

"But,  then,  why  consult  me?"  said  the  cure,  smiling. 

"Well,"  said  the  Duchess,  "I  should  have  to  do  some 
ugly  things " 

"  You  do  not  mean  to  rob  any  one?  " 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  shall  probably  spend  a  good  deal  of 
money." 

"You  will  not  slander  anybody,  nor " 

"Oh!" 

"Nor  do  any  injury  to  your  neighbor?" 

"Well,  well,  I  cannot  answer  for  that." 


BEATRIX.  299 

"Let  us  hear  this  new  plan,"  said  the  cure,  really  curious. 

"  If,  instead  of  driving  one  nail  out  by  another,  thought 
I,  as  I  knelt  on  my  prie-Dieu,  after  beseeching  the  blessed 
Virgin  to  guide  me,  I  were  to  get  Monsieur  de  Rochefide  to 
take  back  his  wife  and  pack  off  Calyste — then,  instead  of 
abetting  evil  to  do  good,  I  should  be  doing  a  good  action 
through  another  by  means  of  a  no  less  good  deed  of  my 

own "     The   priest    looked    at    the    lady,    and    seemed 

thoughtful. 

"  The  idea  has  evidently  come  to  you  from  so  far  that " 

"Yes,"  said  the  simple  and  humble-minded  woman,  "and 
I  have  thanked  the  Virgin.  And  I  vowed  that  beside  paying 
for  a  novena,  I  would  give  twelve  hundred  francs  to  some 
poor  family  if  I  should  succeed.  But  when  I  spoke  of  the 
matter  to  Monsieur  de  Grandlieu,  he  burst  out  laughing,  and 
said — '  I  really  believe  that  at  your  time  of  life  you  women 
have  a  special  devil  all  to  yourselves.'  " 

"Monsieur  le  Due  said,  in  a  husband's  fashion,  just  what  I 
was  about  to  observe  when  you  interrupted  me,"  replied  the 
abbe,  who  could  not  helping  smiling. 

"  Oh,  father,  if  you  approve  of  the  plan,  will  you  approve 
of  the  method  of  execution  ?  The  point  will  be  to  do  with  a 
certain  Madame  Schontz — a  Beatrix  of  the  Saint-Georges  quar- 
ter— what  I  had  intended  to  do  with  Beatrix ;  the  Marquis  will 
then  return  to  his  wife." 

"  I  am  sure  you  will  do  no  wrong,"  said  the  abbe  dexter- 
ously, not  choosing  to  know  more,  as  he  thought  the  result 
necessary.  "  And  you  can  consult  me  if  your  conscience 
makes  itself  heard,"  he  added.  "Supposing  that  instead  of 
affording  the  lady  in  the  Rue  Saint-Georges  some  fresh  occa- 
sion of  misconduct,  your  were  to  find  her  a  husband? " 

"Ah,  my  dear  director,  you  have  set  right  the  only  bad 
feature  of  my  scheme.  You  are  worthy  to  be  an  archbishop, 
and  I  hope  to  live  to  address  you  as  your  Eminence." 

"In  all  this,  I  see  but  one  hitch,"  the  priest  went  on. 


300  BEATRIX. 

"And  what  is  that?" 

"  Madame  de  Rochefide  might  keep  your  son-in-law  even 
if  she  returned  to  her  husband  ?  " 

"That  is  my  affair,"  said  the  Duchess.  "We,  who  so 
rarely  intrigue,  when  we  do " 

"Do  it  badly,  very  badly,"  said  the  abbe.  "Practice  is 
needed  for  everything.  Try  to  annex  one  of  the  rascally  race 
who  live  on  intrigue  and  employ  him  without  betraying 
yourself." 

"  Oh  !  Monsieur  le  Cure,  but  if  we  have  recourse  to  hell, 
will  heaven  be  on  our  side  ?  ' ' 

"You  are  not  in  the  confessional,"  replied  the  abbe; 
"save  your  child." 

The  good  Duchess,  delighted  with  the  keeper  of  her  con- 
science, escorted  him  as  far  as  the  drawing-room  door. 

A  storm,  it  will  be  seen,  was  gathering  over  Monsieur  de 
Rochefide,  who,  at  this  time,  was  enjoying  the  greatest  share 
of  happiness  that  a  Parisian  need  desire,  finding  himself  quite 
as  much  the  master  in  Madame  Schontz's  house  as  in  his  wife's; 
as  the  Duke  had  very  shrewdly  remarked  to  his  wife,  it  would 
seem  impossible  to  upset  so  delightful  and  perfect  a  plan  of 
life.  This  theory  of  the  matter  necessitates  a  few  details  as  to 
the  life  led  by  Monsieur  de  Rochefide  since  his  wife  had  placed 
him  in  the  position  of  a  deserted  husband.  We  shall  thus  un- 
derstand the  enormous  difference  in  the  view  taken  by  law 
and  by  custom  of  the  two  sexes  in  the  same  circumstances. 
Everything  that  works  woe  to  a  deserted  wife  becomes  happi- 
ness to  the  deserted  husband.  This  striking  antithesis  may 
perhaps  induce  more  than  one  young  wife  to  remain  in  her 
home  and  fight  it  out,  like  Sabine  du  Guenic,  by  practicing 
the  most  cruel  or  the  most  inoffensive  virtues,  whichever  she 
may  prefer. 

A  few  days  after  Beatrix's  flight,  Arthur  de  Rochefide — an 
only  child  after  the  death  of  his  sister,  the  first  wife  of  the 


BEATRIX.  301 

Marquis   d'Ajuda-Pinto,  who   left   him    no    children — found 
himself  master  of  the  family  mansion  of  the  Rochefides,  Rue 
d'Anjou-Saint-Honore,  and  of  two  hundred  thousand  francs  a 
year,  left  to  him  by  his  father.     This  fine  fortune,  added  to 
that  which  he  had  when  he  married,  raised  his  income,  includ- 
ing his  wife's  portion,  to  a  thousand   francs  a  day.     To  a 
gentleman  of  such  a  character  as  Mademoiselle  des  Touches 
had  sketched  to  Calyste,  such  a  fortune  was  happiness.     While 
his   wife  was   occupied  with   lovemaking   and    motherhood, 
Rochefide  was  enjoying  his  vast  possessions,  but  he  did  not 
waste  the   money  any  more  than   he  would  waste  his  intel- 
ligence.     His  burly,    good-natured    conceit,   amply  satisfied 
with  the  reputation  for  being  a  fine  man,  to  which  he  owed 
some    success,   entitling   him,   as  he   believed,    to    condemn 
women  as  a  class,  gave  itself  full  play  in  the  sphere  of  intellect. 
He  was  gifted  with  the  sort  of  wit  which  may  be  termed  re- 
fracting, by  the  way  he  repeated  other  persons'  jests  and  wit- 
ticisms from   plays  or  the  newspapers ;   he  appropriated  them 
as  his  own  ;  he  affected  to  ridicule  them,  caricaturing  them  in 
repetition,  and  using  them  as  a  formula  of  criticism  ;   then  his 
military  high  spirits — for  he  had  served  in  the  King's  Guard — 
lent  spice  to  his  conversation,  so  that  dull  women  called  him 
witty,  and  the  rest  dared  not  contradict  them. 

Arthur  carried  this  system  out  in  everything ;  he  owed  to 
nature  the  useful  trick  of  being  an  imitator  without  being  an 
ape  ;  he  could  imitate  quite  seriously.  And  so,  though  he  had 
no  taste,  he  was  always  the  first  to  take  up  and  to  drop  a 
fashion.  He  was  accused  of  giving  too  much  time  to  his 
toilet  and  of  wearing  stays ;  but  he  was  a  typical  example  of 
those  men  who,  by  accepting  the  notions  and  the  follies  of 
others,  never  offend  any  one,  who,  always  being  up  to  date, 
never  grow  any  older.  They  are  the  heroes  of  the  second- 
rate. 

This  husband  was  pitied ;  Beatrix  was  held  inexcusable  for 
having  run  sway  from  the  best  fellow  in  the  world  ;  ridicule 

X 


302  BEATRIX. 

fell  only  on  the  wife.  This  worthy,  loyal,  and  very  silly 
gentleman,  a  member  of  every  club,  a  subscriber  to  every 
absurdity  to  which  blundering  patriotism  and  party-spirit  gave 
rise,  with  a  facile  good-nature  which  brought  him  to  the  front 
on  every  occasion,  was,  of  course,  bent  on  glorifying  himself 
by  some  fashionable  hobby.  His  chief  pride  was  to  be  the 
sultan  of  a  four-footed  seraglio,  managed  by  an  old  English 
groom,  and  this  kennel  cost  him  from  four  to  five  thousand 
francs  a  month.  His  favorite  fad  was  running  horses;  he 
patronized  breeders,  and  paid  the  expenses  of  a  paper  in  the 
racing  interest ;  but  he  knew  little  about  horses,  and  from  the 
bridle  to  the  shoes  trusted  to  his  groom.  This  is  enough  to 
show  that  this  "grass-husband"  had  nothing  of  his  own — 
neither  wit,  nor  taste,  nor  position,  nor  even  absurdities ;  and 
his  fortune  had  come  to  him  from  his  forefathers. 

After  having  tasted  all  the  annoyances  of  married  life,  he 
was  so  happy  to  find  himself  a  bachelor  again  that  he  would 
say  among  friends,  "  I  was  born  to  good  luck  !  "  He  re- 
joiced especially  in  being  able  to  live  free  of  the  expenses  to 
which  married  folk  are  compelled  ;  and  his  house,  in  which 
nothing  had  been  altered  since  his  father's  death,  was  in  the 
state  of  a  man's  home  when  he  is  traveling;  he  rarely  went 
there,  never  fed  there,  and  scarcely  ever  slept  there. 

This  was  the  history  of  this  neglect :  After  many  love 
affairs,  tired  of  women  of  fashion,  who  are  indeed  weariful 
enough,  and  who  set  too  many  dry  thorn-hedges  round  the 
happiness  they  have  to  give,  he  had  practically  married 
Madame  Schontz,  a  woman  notorious  in  the  world  of  Fanny 
Beaupre  and  Suzanne  du  Val-Noble,  of  Mariettes,  Floren- 
tines, Jenny  Cadines,  and  the  like.  This  world — of  which 
one  of  our  draughtsmen  wittily  remarked,  as  he  pointed  to 
the  whirl  of  an  opera  ball,  "When  you  think  that  all  that 
mob  is  well  housed,  and  dressed,  and  fed,  you  can  form  a 
good  idea  of  what  men  are!" — this  dangerous  world  has 
already  been  seen  in  this  History  of  Manners  in  the  typical 


BEATRIX.  303 

figures  of  Florine  and  the  famous  Malaga  (of  "A  Daughter 
of  Eve  "  and  "The  Imaginary  Mistress  ") ;  but  to  paint  it 
faithfully,  the  historian  would  have  to  represent  such  persons 
in  some  numerical  proportion  to  the  variety  of  their  strange 
individual  lives,  ending  in  poverty  of  the  most  hideous-kind, 
in  early  death,  in  ease,  in  happy  marriages,  or  sometimes  in 
great  wealth. 

Madame  Schontz,  at  first  known  as  la  Petite  Aurelie,  to 
distinguish  her  from  a  rival  far  less  clever  than  herself,  be- 
longed to  the  higher  class  of  these  women  on  whose  social 
uses  no  doubt  can  be  thrown  either  by  the  prefect  of  the 
Seine  or  by  those  who  take  an  interest  in  the  prosperity  of  the 
city  of  Paris.  Certainly  the  "  rats  "  accused  of  devouring 
fortunes,  which  are  often  imaginary,  in  some  respects  are 
more  like  a  beaver.  Without  the  Aspasias  of  the  Notre- Dame 
de  Lorette  quarter,  fewer  houses  would  be  built  in  Paris. 
Pioneers  of  fresh  stucco,  in  tow  of  speculation,  pitch  their 
outlying  tents  along  the  hillsides  of  Montmartre,  beyond 
those  deserts  of  masonry  which  are  to  be  seen  in  the  streets 
round  the  Place  de  l'Europe — Amsterdam,  Milan,  Stockholm, 
London,  and  Moscow — architectural  steppes  betraying  their 
emptiness  by  endless  placards  announcing  Apartments  to 
Let. 

The  position  of  these  ladies  is  commensurate  with  that  of 
their  lodgings  in  these  innominate  regions.  If  the  house  is 
near  the  line  marked  by  the  Rue  de  Provence,  the  woman 
has  money  in  the  Funds,  her  income  is  assured  ;  but  if  she 
lives  out  near  the  exterior  boulevards,  or  on  the  height  toward 
the  horrible  suburb  of  Batignolles,  she  is  certainly  poor. 

Now  when  Monsieur  de  Rochefide  first  met  Madame 
Schontz,  she  was  lodging  on  the  fourth  floor  of  the  only 
house  then  standing  in  the  Rue  de  Berlin.  The  name  of  this 
unmarried  wife,  as  you  will  have  understood,  was  neither 
Aurelie  nor  Schontz.  She  concealed  her  father's  name — that 
of  an  old  soldier  of  the  Empire,  the  perennial  colonel  whe 


304  BEATRIX. 

always  adorns  the  origin  of  these  existences,  as  the  father  or 
the  seducer.  Madame  Schontz  had  enjoyed , the  benefits  of  a„ 
gratuitous  education  at  Saint-Denis,  where  the  young  persons 
are  admirably  taught,  but  where  the  young  persons  are  not 
provided  on  leaving  with  husbands  or  a  living — an  admirable 
foundation  of  the  Emperor's,  the  only  thing  lacking  being 
the  Emperor  himself!  "  I  shall  be  there  to  provide  for  the 
daughters  of  my  legionaries,"  said  he,  in  answer  to  one  of  his 
ministers  who  looked  forward  to  the  future.  And  in  the  same 
way  Napoleon  said  "I  shall  'be  there"  to  the  members  of 
the  Institute,  to  whom  it  would  be  better  to  give  no  honor- 
arium at  all  than  to  pay  them  eighty-three  francs  a  month,  less 
than  the  wages  of  many  an  office  clerk. 

Aurelie  was  very  certainly  the  daughter  of  the  valiant  Col- 
onel Schiltz,  a  leader  of  those  daring  Alsatian  partisans  who 
so  nearly  succeeded  in  saving  the  Emperor  in  the  French 
campaign  ;  he  died  at  Metz,  robbed,  neglected,  and  ruined. 
In  1814  Napoleon  sent  little  Josephine  Schiltz,  then  nine 
years  old,  to  school  at  Saint-Denis.  Without  father  or  mother, 
home  or  money,  the  poor  child  was  not  driven  out  of  the 
institution  on  the  second  return  of  the  Bourbons.  She  re- 
mained there  as  under-teacher  until  1827;  but  then  her 
patience  failed  and  her  beauty  led  her  astray.  When  she 
was  of  age,  Josephine  Schiltz,'  the  Empress'  god-daughter, 
embarked  on  the  adventurous  life  of  the  courtesan,  tempted 
to  this  doubtful  career  by  the  fatal  example  of  some  of  her 
school-fellows  as  destitute  as  she  was,  and  who  rejoiced  in 
their  decision.  She  substituted  on  for  //in  her  father's  name, 
and  placed  herself  under  the  protection  of  Saint  Aurelia. 

Clever,  witty,  and  well  informed,  she  made  more  mistakes 
than  her  more  stupid  companions,  whose  wrong-doing  was 
always  based  on  self-interest.  After  various  connections  with 
writers,  some  poor  but  unmannerly,  some  clever  but  in  debt; 
after  trying  her  fortune  with  some  rich  men  as  close-fisted  as 
they  were  silly ;  after  sacrificing  ease  to  a  true  passion,  and 


BE  A  TRIX.  305 

learning  in  every  school  where  experience  may  be  gained,  one 
day,  when,  in  the  depths  of  poverty,  she  was  dancing  at  Val- 
entino's— the  first  stage  to  Musard's — dressed  in  a  borrowed 
gown,  hat,  and  cape,  she  attracted  Rochefide's  attention ;  he 
had  come  to  see  the  famous  galop  !  Her  cleverness  bewitched 
the  gentleman,  who  had  exhausted  every  sensation  ;  and  when, 
two  years  after,  being  deserted  by  Beatrix,  whose  wit  had 
often  disconcerted  him,  he  allied  himself  with  a  second-hand 
Beatrix  "  of  the  Thirteenth  Arrondissement,"  no  one  thought 
of  blaming  him. 

We  may  here  give  a  sketch  of  the  four  seasons  of  such  a 
happy  home.  It  is  desirable  to  show  how  the  theory  of  "a 
marriage  in  the  Thirteenth  Arrondissement"  includes  all  the 
whole  connection.  Whether  a  marquis  of  forty  or  a  retired 
storekeeper  of  sixty,  a  millionaire  six  times  over  or  a  man  of 
narrow  private  means,  a  fine  gentleman  or  a  middle-class  citi- 
zen, the  tactics  of  passion,  barring  the  differences  inseparable 
from  dissimilar  social  spheres,  never  vary.  Heart  and  banking 
account  maintain  an  exact  and  definite  relation.  And  you 
will  be  able  to  form  an  idea  of  the  obstacles  the  Duchess 
must  meet  with  to  her  charitable  scheme. 

Few  persons  understand  the  power  of  words  over  ordinary 
folk  in  France,  or  the  mischief  done  by  the  wits  who  invent 
them.  For  instance,  no  bookkeeper  could  add  up  the  figures 
of  the  sums  of  money  which  have  lain  unproductive  and  rusty 
at  the  bottom  of  generous  hearts  and  full  coffers  in  conse- 
quence of  the  mean  phrase  Tirer  une  carotte — to  fleece  or 
bleed  a  victim.  The  words  have  become  so  common  that 
they  must  be  allowed  to  deface  this  page.  Beside,  if  we  ven- 
ture into  the  "  Thirteenth  Arrondissement,"  we  must  needs 
adopt  its  picturesque  language. 

Monsieur  de  Rochefide,  like  all  small  minds,  was  constantly 

in  fear  of  being  bled.     From  the  beginning  of  his  attachment 

to  Madame  Schontz,  Arthur  was  on  his  guard,  and  was  at  that 

time  a  dreadful  screw,  very  rat,  to  use  another  slang  word  of 

20" 


306  BEATRIX. 

the  studio  and  the  brothel.  This  word  rat  (which  in  French 
has  many  slang  uses)  when  applied  to  a  young  girl  means  the 
person  entertained,  but  applied  to  a  man  means  the  stingy 
entertainer.  Madame  Schontz  had  too  much  intelligence, 
and  knew  men  too  thoroughly,  not  to  found  high  hopes  on 
such  a  beginning.  Monsieur  de  Rochefide  allowed  Madame 
Schontz  five  hundred  francs  a  month,  furnished,  meagrely 
enough,  a  set  of  rooms  at  twelve  hundred  francs  a  year  on 
the  second  floor  of  a  house  in  the  Rue  Coquenard,  and  set 
himself  to  study  Aurelie's  character;  and  she,  finding  herself 
spied  upon,  gave  him  character  to  study. 

Rochefide  was  delighted  to  have  come  across  a  woman  of 
such  a  noble  nature,  but  it  did  not  astonish  him  ;  her  mother 
was  a  Barnheim  of  Baden,  quite  a  lady  !  And  then  Aurelie 
had  been  so  well  brought  up  !  Speaking  English,  German, 
and  Italian,  she  was  versed  in  foreign  literature  ;  she  could 
pit  herself,  without  discomfiture,  against  pianists  of  the  second 
class.  And,  note  the  point !  she  behaved  as  regarded  her 
talents  like  a  woman  of  breeding  :  she  never  talked  about 
them.  In  a  painter's  studio  she  would  take  up  a  brush  in 
fun  and  sketch  a  head  with  so  much  go  as  to  amaze  the  com- 
pany. As  a  pastime,  when  she  was  pining  as  a  school-teacher, 
she  had  dabbled  in  some  sciences,  but  her  life  as  a  kept  mis- 
tress had  sown  salt  over  all  this  good  seed,  and,  of  course,  she 
laid  the  flowers  of  these  precious  growths,  revived  for  him,  at 
Arthur's  feet.  Thus  did  Aurelie  at  first  make  a  display  of 
disinterestedness  to  match  the  pleasures  she  could  give,  which 
enabled  this  light  corvette  to  cast  her  grappling-irons  firmly 
on  board  the  statelier  craft.  Still,  even  at  the  end  of  the 
first  year,  she  made  a  vulgar  noise  in  the  anteroom,  managing 
to  come  in  just  when  the  Marquis  was  waiting  for  her,  and 
tried  to  hide  the  disgracefully  muddy  hem  of  her  gown  in 
such  a  way  as  to  make  it  more  conspicuous.  In  short,  she  so 
cleverly  contrived  to  persuade  her  Gros  Papa  that  her  utmost 
ambition,  after  so  many  vicissitudes,  was  to  enjoy  a  simple, 


BEATRIX.  307 

middle-class  existence,  that  by  the  end  of  ten  months  the 
second  phase  of  their  connection  began. 

Then  Madame  Schontz  had  a  fine  apartment  in  the  Rue 
Saint-Georges.  Arthur,  who  could  no  longer  conceal  from 
her  the  fact  of  his  wealth,  gave  her  handsome  furniture,  a 
service  of  plate,  twelve  hundred  francs  a  month,  and  a  little, 
low  carriage,  with  a  single  horse,  by  the  week,  and  he  granted 
her  a  little  groom  with  a  fairly  good  grace.  She  knew  what 
this  munificence  was  worth  ;  she  detected  the  motives  of  her 
Arthur's  conduct,  and  saw  in  them  the  calculations  of  a  close- 
fisted  man.  Tired  of  living  at  restaurants,  where  the  food  is 
generally  execrable,  where  the  simplest  dinner  of  any  refine- 
ment cost  sixty  francs,  and  two  hundred  for  a  party  of  four 
friends,  Rochefide  offered  Madame  Schontz  forty  francs  a  day 
for  his  dinner  and  a  friend's,  wine  included.  Aurelie  had  no 
mind  to  refuse.  After  getting  all  her  moral  bills  of  exchange 
accepted,  drawn  on  Monsieur  de  Rochefide's  habits  at  a 
year's  date,  she  was  favorably  heard  when  she  asked  for  five 
hundred  francs  a  year  more  for  dress,  on  the  plea  that  her 
Gros  Papa,  whose  friends  all  belonged  to  the  Jockey  Club, 
might  not  be  ashamed  of  her. 

"  A  pretty  thing,  indeed,"  said  she,  "  if  Rastignac,  Maxime 
de  Trailles,  la  Roche-Hugon,  Ronquerolles,  Laginski,  Lenon- 
court,  and  the  rest  should  see  you  with  a  Madame  Everard  ! 
Put  your  trust  in  me,  Gros  P'ere,  and  you  will  be  the  gainer." 

And  Aurelie  did,  in  fact,  lay  herself  out  for  a  fresh  display 
of  virtues  in  these  new  circumstances.  She  sketched  a  part 
for  herself  as  the  housewife,  in  which  she  won  ample  credit. 
She  made  both  ends  meet,  said  she,  at  the  end  of  the  month, 
and  had  no  debts,  on  two  thousand  five  hundred  francs,  such 
a  thing  as  had  never  been  seen  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain 
of  the  Thirteenth  Arrondissement — the  upper  ten  of  the  demi- 
reps world  ;  and  she  gave  dinners  infinitely  better  than  Nucin- 
gen's,  with  first-class  wines  at  ten  and  twelve  francs  a  bottle. 
So  that  Rochefide,  amazed  and  delighted  to  be  able  to  ask 


308  BEA  TRIX. 

his  friends  pretty  often  to  his  mistress'  house  as  a  matter  of 
economy,  would  say  to  her,  with  his  arm  round  her  waist, 
"  You  are  a  perfect  treasure  !  " 

Before  long  he  took  a  third  share  in  an  opera  box  for  her, 
and  at  last  went  with  her  to  first-night  performances.  He 
began  to  take  counsel  of  his  Aurelie,  acknowledging  the 
soundness  of  her  advice  ;  she  allowed  him  to  appropriate  the 
wit  she  was  always  ready  with  ;  and  her  sallies,  being  new, 
won  him  the  reputation  for  being  an  amusing  man.  At  last 
he  felt  perfectly  sure  that  she  loved  him  truly,  and  for  himself. 
Aurelie  refused  to  make  a  Russian  prince  happy  at  the  rate 
of  five  thousand  francs  a  month. 

"You  are  a  happy  man,  my  dear  Marquis,"  cried  old 
Prince  Galathionne  as  they  ended  a  rubber  of  whist  at  the 
club.  "  Yesterday,  when  you  left  us  together,  I  tried  to  get 
her  away  from  you ;  but  '  Mon  Prince,'  said  she  '  you  are  not 
handsomer  than  Rochefide  though  you  are  older ;  you  would 
beat  me,  and  he  is  like  a  father  to  me  ;  show  me  then  the 
quarter  of  a  good  reason  for  leaving  him  !  I  do  not  love 
Arthur  with  the  crazy  passion  I  had  for  the  young  rogues  with 
patent-leather  shoes,  whose  bills  I  used  to  pay ;  but  I  love  him 
as  a  wife  loves  her  husband  when  she  is  a  decent  woman.' 
And  she  showed  me  to  the  door." 

This  speech,  which  had  no  appearance  of  exaggeration,  had 
the  effect  of  adding  considerably  to  the  state  of  neglect  and 
shabbiness  that  disfigured  the  home  of  the  Rochefides.  Ere 
long  Arthur  had  transplanted  his  existence  and  his  pleasures 
to  Madame  Schontz's  lodgings,  and  found  it  answer  ;  for  by 
the  end  of  three  years  he  had  four  hundred  thousand  francs 
to  invest. 

Then  began  the  third  phase.  Madame  Schontz  became  the 
kindest  of  mothers  to  Arthur's  son  ;  she  fetched  him  from 
school  and  took  him  back  herself;  she  loaded  him  with 
presents,  sweetmeats,  and  pocket-money  ;  and  the  child,  who 
adored  her,  called  her  his  "  little  mamma."     She  advised  her 


BE  A  TRIX.  309 

Arthur  in  the  management  of  his  money-matters,  making  him 
buy  consols  at  the  fall  before  the  famous  treaty  of  London, 
which  led  to  the  overthrow  of  the  Ministry  on  the  ist  of 
March.  Arthur  made  two  hundred  thousand  francs,  and 
Aurelie  did  not  ask  for  a  sou.  Rochefide,  being  a  gentleman, 
invested  his  six  hundred  thousand  francs  in  bank  bills,  half  of 
them  in  the  name  of  Mademoiselle  Josephine  Schiltz. 

A  small  house,  rented  in  the  Rue  de  la  Bruyere,  was  placed 
in  the  hands  of  Grindot,  that  great  architect  on  a  small  scale, 
with  instructions  to  make  it  a  delicious  jewel  case.  Thence- 
forth Rochefide  left  everything  in  the  hands  of  Madame 
Schontz,  who  received  the  dividends  and  paid  the  bills.  Thus 
installed  in  his  wife's  place,  she  justified  him  by  making  her 
Gros  Papa  happier  than  ever.  She  understood  his  whims  and 
satisfied  them,  as  Madame  de  Pompadour  humored  the  fancies 
of  Louis  XV.  She  was,  in  fact,  maitresse  en  titre — absolute 
mistress. 

She  now  allowed  herself  to  patronize  certain  charming 
young  men,  artists  and  literary  youths  newly  born  to  glory, 
who  disowned  the  ancients  and  the  moderns  alike,  and  tried 
to  achieve  a  great  reputation  by  achieving  nothing  else. 
Madame  Schontz's  conduct,  a  masterwork  of  tactics,  shows 
her  superior  intelligence.  In  the  first  place,  a  party  of  ten  or 
twelve  young  men  amused  Arthur,  supplied  him  with  witty 
sayings  and  shrewd  opinions  on  every  subject,  and  never  cast 
any  doubt  on  the  fidelity  of  the  mistress  of  the  house ;  in  the 
second  place,  they  looked  up  to  her  as  a  highly  intellectual 
woman.  These  living  advertisements,  these  walking  "puffs," 
reported  that  Madame  Schontz  was  the  most  charming  woman 
to  be  found  on  the  borderland  dividing  the  Thirteenth  Arron- 
dissement  from  the  other  twelve. 

Her  rivals,  Suzanne  Gaillard,  who  since  1838  had  the  ad- 
vantage over  her  of  being  a  legitimately  married  wife,  Fanny 
Beaupre,  Mariette,  and  Antonia,  spread  more  than  scandalous 
reports  as  to  the  beauty  of  these  youths  and  the  kindness  with 


310  BE  A  TRIX. 

which  Monsieur  de  Rochefide  welcomed  them.  Madame 
Schontz,  who  could,  she  declared,  give  these  ladies  a  start  of 
three  bad  jokes  and  beat  them,  exclaimed  one  evening,  at  a 
supper  given  by  Florine  after  an  opera,  when  she  had  set  forth 
to  them  her  good  fortune  and  her  success,  "  Do  thou  like- 
wise 1  "  a  retort  which  had  been  remembered  against  her.  At 
this  stage  of  her  career  Madame  Schontz  got  the  racers  sold, 
in  deference  to  certain  considerations,  which  she  owed  no 
doubt  to  the  critical  acumen  of  Claud  Vignon,  a  frequent 
visitor. 

"  I  could  quite  understand,"  said  she  one  day,  after  lashing 
the  horses  with  her  tongue,  "  that  princes  and  rich  men  should 
take  horse-breeding  to  heart,  but  for  the  good  of  the  country 
and  not  for  the  childish  satisfaction  of  a  gambler's  vanity. 
If  you  had  stud  stables  on  your  estates  and  could  breed  a 
thousand  or  twelve  hundred  horses,  if  each  owner  sent  the 
best  horse  in  his  stable,  and  if  every  breeder  in  France  and 
Navarre  should  compete  every  time,  it  would  be  a  great  and 
fine  thing;  but  you  buy  a  single  horse,  as  the  manager  of  a 
theatre  engages  his  artists,  you  reduce  an  institution  to  the 
level  of  a  game,  you  have  a  Bourse  for  legs  as  you  have  a 
Bourse  for  shares.  It  is  degrading.  Would  you  spend  sixty 
thousand  francs  to  see  in  the  papers — '  Monsieur  de  Roche- 
fide's  Lelia  beat  Monsieur  le  Due  de  Rhetore's  Fleur-de  Genet 

by  a  length '     Why,  you  had  better  give  the  money  to  a 

poet  who  will  hand  you  down  to  immortality  in  verse  or  in 
prose,  like  the  late  lamented  Montyon  !  " 

By  dint  of  such  goading  the  Marquis  was  brought  to  see 
the  hollowness  of  the  turf;  he  saved  his  sixty  thousand  francs; 
and  next  year  Madame  Schontz  could  say  to  him :  "I  cost 
you  nothing  now,  Arthur." 

Many  rich  men  envied  the  Marquis  his  Aurelie,  and  tried 
to  win  her  from  him ;  but,  like  the  Russian  prince,  they 
wasted  their  old  age. 

"Listen  to  me,  my  dear  fellow,"  she  had  said  a  fortnight 


BEATRIX.  311 

ago  to  Finot,  now  a  very  rich  men,  "  I  know  that  Rochefide 
would  forgive  me  for  a  little  flirtation  if  I  really  fell  in  love 
with  another  man,  but  no  woman  would  give  up  a  marquis 
who  is  such  a  thorough  good  fellow  to  take  up  with  a  parvenu 
like  you.  You  would  never  keep  me  in  such  a  position  as 
Arthur  has  placed  me  in.  He  has  made  me  all  but  his  wife, 
and  half  a  lady,  and  you  could  never  do  as  much  for  me  even 
if  you  married  me." 

This  was  the  last  rivet  that  held  the  fortunate  slave.  The 
speech  reached  those  absent  ears  for  which  it  was  intended. 

Thus  began  the  fourth  phase,  that  of  habit,  the  crowning 
victory  of  the  plan  of  campaign  which  enables  a  woman  of 
this  stamp  to  say  of  the  man,  "  I  have  him  safe  !  ' '  Rochefide, 
who  had  just  bought  a  pretty  house  in  the  name  of  Mademoi- 
selle Josephine  Schiltz,  a  mere  trifle  of  eighty  thousand  francs, 
had,  at  the  time  when  the  Duchess  was  laying  her  plans,  come 
to  the  point  when  he  was  vain  of  his  mistress,  calling  her 
Ninon  II.,  and  boasting  of  her  strict  honesty,  her  excellent 
manners,  her  information,  and  wit.  He  had  concentrated  his 
good  and  bad  qualities,  his  tastes  and  pleasures  all  in  Madame 
Schontz,  and  had  reached  that  stage  of  life  when  from  weari- 
ness, indifference,  or  philosophy  a  man  changes  no  more,  but 
is  faithful  to  his  wife  or  his  mistress. 

The  importance  to  which  Madame  Schontz  had  risen  in 
five  years  may  be  understood  when  it  is  said  that  to  be  intro- 
duced to  her  a  man  had  to  be  mentioned  to  her  some  time  in 
advance.  She  had  refused  to  make  the  acquaintance  of 
certain  tiresome  rich  men,  and  others  of  fly-blown  reputa- 
tions ;  she  made  no  exceptions  to  this  strict  rule  but  in  the 
case  of  certain  great  aristocratic  names. 

"  They  have  a  right  to  be  stupid,"  she  would  say,  "  because 
they  are  swells." 

Ostensibly  she  possessed  the  three  hundred  thousand  francs 
that  Rochefide  had  given  her,  and  that  a  thorough  good 
fellow,  a   stockbroker   named   Gobenheim — the   only   stock- 


312  BE  A  TRIX. 

broker  she  allowed  in  her  house — managed  for  her;  but  she 
also  managed  for  herself  a  little  private  fortune  of  two  hun- 
dred thousand  francs,  formed  of  her  savings  on  her  house 
allowance  for  three  years,  by  constantly  buying  and  selling 
with  the  three  hundred  thousand  francs,  which  were  all  she 
would  ever  confess  to. 

"The  more  you  make,  the  less  you  seem  to  have,"  Goben- 
heim  remarked  one  day. 

"  Water  is  so  dear  !  "  said  she. 

This  unrevealed  store  was  increased  by  the  jewelry  and 
diamonds  which  Aurelie  would  wear  for  a  month  and  then 
sell,  and  by  money  given  her  for  fancies  she  had  forgotten. 
When  she  heard  herself  called  rich,  Madame  Schontz  would 
reply  that,  at  present  rates,  three  hundred  thousand  francs 
brought  in  twelve  thousand  francs,  and  that  she  had  spent  it 
all  in  the  hard  times  of  her  life  when  Lousteau  had  been  her 
lover. 

Such  method  showed  a  plan  ;  and  Madame  Schontz,  you 
may  be  sure,  had  a  plan.  For  the  last  two  years  she  had  been 
jealous  of  Madame  du  Bruel,  and  the  desire  to  be  married  at 
the  mayor's  and  in  church  gnawed  at  her  heart.  Every  social 
grade  has  its  forbidden  fruit,  some  little  thing  exaggerated  by 
desire,  till  it  seems  as  weighty  as  the  globe.  This  ambition 
had,  of  course,  its  duplicate  in  the  ambition  of  a  second 
Arthur,  whom  watchfulness  had  entirely  failed  to  discover. 
Bixiou  would  have  it  that  the  favorite  was  Leon  de  Lora;  the 
painter  believed  that  it  was  Bixiou,  who  was  now  past  forty, 
and  should  be  thinking  of  settling.  Suspicion  also  fell  on 
Victor  de  Vernisset,  a  young  poet  of  the  Canalis  school, 
whose  passion  for  Madame  Schontz  was  a  perfect  madness  ; 
while  the  poet  accused  Stidmann,  a  sculptor,  of  being  his 
favored  rival.  This  artist,  a  very  good-looking  young  man, 
worked  for  goldsmiths,  for  bronze  dealers,  and  jewelers  ;  he 
dreamed  of  being  a  Benvenuto  Cellini.     Claud  Vignon,  the 


BEATRIX.  313 

young  Comte  de  la  Palferine,  Gobenheim,  Vermanton,  a 
cynic  philosopher,  and  other  frequenters  of  this  lively  salon 
were  suspected  by  turns,  but  all  acquitted.  No  one  was  a 
match  for  Madame  Schontz,  not  even  Rochefide,  who  fancied 
she  had  a  weakness  for  la  Palferine,  a  clever  youth  ;  she  was, 
in  fact,  virtuous  in  her  own  interests,  and  thought  only  of 
making  a  good  match. 

Only  one  man  of  equivocal  repute  was  ever  to  be  seen  at 
Madame  Schontz's,  and  that  was  Couture,  who  had  more 
than  once  been  howled  at  on  the  Bourse ;  but  Couture  was 
one  of  Madame  Schontz's  oldest  friends,  and  she  alone  re- 
mained faithful  to  him.  The  false  alarm  of  1840  swept  away 
this  speculator's  last  capital ;  he  had  trusted  to  the  1st  of 
March  Ministry  ;  Aurelie,  seeing  that  luck  was  against  him, 
made  Rochefide  play  for  the  other  side.  It  was  she  who 
spoke  of  the  last  overthrow  of  this  inventor  of  premiums  and 
joint-stock  companies  as  a  Decouture  (unripping  a  rip). 

Couture,  delighted  to  find  a  knife  and  fork  laid  for  him  at 
Aurelie's,  and  getting  from  Finot — the  cleverest  or,  perhaps, 
the  luckiest  of  parvenus — a  few  thousand-franc  notes  now 
and  then,  was  the  only  man  shrewd  enough  to  offer  his  name 
to  Madame  Schontz,  who  studied  him  to  ascertain  whether 
this  bold  speculator  would  have  strength  enough  to  make  a 
political  career  for  himself,  and  gratitude  enough  not  to 
desert  his  wife.  A  man  of  about  forty-three  years  old,  and 
worn  for  his  age,  Couture  did  not  redeem  the  ill-repute  of  his 
name  by  his  birth  ;  he  had  little  to  say  of  his  progenitors. 
Madame  Schontz  was  lamenting  the  rarity  of  men  of  business 
capacity,  when  one  day  Couture  himself  introduced  to  her  a 
provincial  gentleman  who  happened  to  be  provided  with  the 
two  handles  by  which  women  hold  this  sort  of  pitcher  when 
they  mean  not  to  drop  it. 

A  sketch  of  this  personage  will  be  a  portrait  of  a  certain 
type  of  young  man  of  the  day.  A  digression  will,  in  this 
case,  be  history. 


314  BE  A  TRIX. 

In  1838  Fabien  du  Ronceret,  the  son  of  a  president  of  the 
Chamber  at  the  King's  Court  of  Caen,  having  lost  his  father 
about  a  year  before,  came  from  Alencon,  throwing  up  his 
appointment  as  magistrate,  in  which,  as  he  said,  his  father 
had  made  him  waste  his  time,  and  settled  in  Paris.  His  in- 
tention now  was  to  get  on  in  the  world  by  cutting  a  dash,  a 
Norman  scheme  somewhat  difficult  of  accomplishment,  since 
he  had  scarcely  eight  thousand  francs  a  year,  his  mother  still 
being  alive  and  enjoying  the  life-interest  of  some  fine  house- 
property  in  the  heart  of  Alencon.  This  youth  had  already, 
in  the  course  of  various  visits  to  Paris,  tried  his  foot  on  the 
tight-rope ;  he  had  discerned  the  weak  point  of  the  social 
stucco  restoration  of  1830,  and  meant  to  work  on  it  for  his 
own  profit,  following  the  lead  of  the  sharpers  of  the  middle 
class.  To  explain  this,  we  must  glance  at  one  of  the  results 
of  the  new  state  of  things. 

Modern  notions  of  equality,  which  in  our  day  have  assumed 
such  extravagant  proportions,  have  inevitably  developed  in 
private  life — in  a  parallel  line  with  political  life — pride,  con- 
ceit, and  vanity,  the  three  grand  divisions  of  the  social  I. 
Fools  wish  to  pass  for  clever  men,  clever  men  want  to  be  men 
of  talent,  men  of  talent  expect  to  be  treated  as  geniuses  :  as 
to  the  geniuses,  they  are  more  reasonable ;  they  consent  to  be 
regarded  as  no  more  than  demi-gods.  This  tendency  of  the 
spirit  of  the  time,  which  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  makes 
the  manufacturer  jealous  of  the  statesman,  and  the  adminis- 
trator jealous  of  the  poet,  prompts  fools  to  run  down  clever 
men,  clever  men  to  run  down  men  of  talent,  men  of  talent  to 
run  down  those  who  are  a  few  inches  higher  than  themselves, 
and  the  demi-gods  to  threaten  institutions,  the  throne  itself, 
in  short,  everything  and  everybody  that  does  not  worship 
them  unconditionally. 

As  soon  as  a  nation  is  so  impolitic  as  to  overthrow  recog- 
nized social  superiority,  it  opens  the  sluice-gates,  through 
which  rushes  forthwith  a  torrent  of  second-rate  ambitions,  the 


BEATRIX.  315 

least  of  which  would  fain  be  first.  According  to  the  demo- 
crats, its  aristocracy  was  a  disease,  but  a  definite  and  circum- 
scribed disease ;  it  has  exchanged  this  for  ten  armed  and 
contending  aristocracies,  the  worst  possible  state  of  things. 
To  proclaim  the  equality  of  all  is  to  declare  the  rights  of  the 
envious.  We  are  enjoying  now  the  Saturnalia  of  the  Revolution 
transferred  to  the  apparently  peaceful  sphere  of  intelligence, 
industry,  and  politics ;  it  seems  as  though  the  reputations 
earned  by  hard  work,  good  service,  and  talent  were  a  privi- 
lege granted  at  the  expense  of  the  masses.  The  agrarian  law 
will  ere  long  be  extended  to  the  field  of  glory. 

Thus,  at  no  time  have  men  demanded  public  recognition 
on  more  puerile  grounds.  They  must  be  remarked  at  any 
cost  for  an  affectation  of  devotion  to  the  cause  of  Poland,  to 
the  penitential  system,  to  the  future  prospects  of  released  con- 
victs, to  that  of  small  rogues  under  or  over  the  age  of  twelve, 
to  any  kind  of  social  quackery.  These  various  manias  give 
rise  to  spurious  dignities — presidents,  vice-presidents,  and 
secretaries  of  societies,  which,  in  Paris,  outnumber  the  social 
questions  to  be  solved.  Society  on  a  grand  scale  has  been 
demolished  to  make  way  for  a  thousand  small  ones  in  the 
image  of  the  dead  one. 

Do  not  all  these  parasitical  organisms  point  to  decomposi- 
tion ?  Are  they  not  the  worms  swarming  in  the  carcase  ? 
All  these  social  bodies  are  the  daughters  of  one  mother — 
Vanity.  Not  thus  does  Catholic  charity  act,  or  true  benevo- 
lence ;  these  study  disease  while  healing  its  sores,  and  do  not 
speechify  in  public  on  morbid  symptoms  for  the  mere  pleasure 
of  talking. 

Fabien  du  Ronceret,  without  being  a  superior  man,  had 
divined,  by  the  exercise  of  that  acquisitive  spirit  peculiar  to 
the  Norman  race,  all  the  advantage  he  might  take  of  this 
public  distemper.  Each  age  has  its  characteristic,  which 
clever  men  trade  on.  Fabien's  only  aim  was  to  get  himself 
talked  about. 


316  BE  A  TRIX. 

"  My  dear  fellow,  a  man  must  make  his  name  known  if  he 
wants  to  get  on,"  said  he  as  he  left,  to  du  Bousquier,  a  friend 
of  his  father's,  and  the  King  of  Alencon.  "  In  six  months  I 
shall  be  better  known  than  you." 

This  was  how  Fabien  interpreted  the  spirit  of  his  time  ;  he 
did  not  rule  it,  he  obeyed  it. 

He  had  first  appeared  in  bohemia,  a  district  of  the  moral 
topography  of  Paris  (see  "A  Prince  of  Bohemia"),  and  was 
known  as  "The  Heir,"  in  consequence  of  a  certain  premedi- 
tated parade  of  extravagance.  Du  Ronceret  had  taken  advan- 
tage of  Couture's  follies  in  behalf  of  pretty  Madame  Cadine — 
one  of  the  newer  actresses,  who  was  considered  extremely  clever 
at  the  second-class  theatres — for  whom  he  had  furnished  a 
charming  first-floor  apartment  with  a  garden,  in  the  Rue 
Blanche. 

This  was  the  way  in  which  the  men  made  acquaintance : 
The  Norman,  in  search  of  ready-made  luxury,  bought  the 
furniture  from  Couture,  with  all  the  decorative  fixtures  he 
could  not  remove  from  the  rooms,  a  garden-room  for  smoking 
in,  with  a  veranda  built  of  rustic  woodwork,  hung  with  Indian 
matting,  and  decorated  with  pottery,  to  get  to  the  smoking- 
room  in  rainy  weather.  When  the  Heir  was  complimented 
on  his  rooms,  he  called  them  his  den.  The  provincial  took 
care  not  to  mention  that  Grindot  the  architect  had  lavished 
all  his  art  there,  as  had  Stidmann  on  the  carvings,  and  Leon 
de  Lora  on  the  paintings ;  for  his  greatest  fault  was  that  form 
of  conceit  which  goes  so  far  as  lying  with  a  view  to  self-glorifi- 
cation. 

The  Heir  put  the  finishing  touch  to  this  splendor  by  build- 
ing a  conservatory  against  a  south  wall,  not  because  he  loved 
flowers,  but  because  he  meant  to  attack  public  repute  by  means 
of  horticulture.  At  this  moment  he  had  almost  attained  his 
end.  As  vice-president  of  some  gardening  society,  under  the 
presidency  of  the  Due  de  Vissembourg,  brother  of  the  Prince 
de  Chiavari,  the  younger  son  of  the  late  Marechal  Vernon,  he 


BE  A  TRIX.  317 

had  been  able  to  decorate  the  vice-presidential  coat  with  the 
ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  after  an  exhibition  of  horti- 
cultural produce,  which  he  opened  by  an  address  given  out  as 
his  own,  but  purchased  of  Lousteau  for  five  hundred  francs. 
He  was  conspicuous  by  wearing  a  flower  given  to  him  by  old 
Blondet  of  Alencon,  Emile  Blondet's  father,  which  he  said  had 
bloomed  in  his  conservatory. 

But  this  triumph  was  nothing.  Du  Ronceret,  who  was 
anxious  to  pass  as  a  man  of  superior  intelligence,  had  schemed 
to  ally  himself  with  a  set  of  famous  men,  to  shine  by  a  reflected 
light,  a  plan  very  difficult  to  carry  out  on  the  basis  of  an  in- 
come of  eight  thousand  francs.  And,  in  fact,  he  had  looked 
by  turns,  but  in  vain,  to  Bixiou,  Stidmann,  and  Leon  de  Lora 
to  introduce  him  to  Madame  Schontz,  so  as  to  become  a 
member  of  that  menagerie  of  lions  of  every  degree.  Then  he 
dined  Couture  so  often  that  Couture  proved  categorically  to 
Madame  Schontz  that  she  had  to  admit  such  an  eccentric 
specimen,  were  it  only  to  secure  him  as  one  of  those  graceful 
unpaid  messengers  whom  house-mistresses  are  glad  to  employ 
on  the  errands  for  which  servants  are  unsuited. 

By  the  end  of  the  third  evening  Madame  Schontz  knew 
Fabien  through  and  through,  and  said  to  herself,  "  If  Couture 
does  not  serve  my  turn,  I  am  perfectly  certain  of  this  man. 
My  future  life  runs  on  wheels." 

So  this  simpleton,  laughed  at  by  every  one,  was  the  man  of 
her  choice  ;  but  with  a  deliberate  purpose  which  made  the 
preference  an  insult,  and  the  choice  was  never  suspected  from 
its  utter  improbability.  Madame  Schontz  turned  Fabien's 
brain  by  stolen  smiles,  by  little  scenes  on  the  threshold  when 
she  saw  him  out  the  last,  if  Monsieur  de  Rochefide  spent  the 
evening  there.  She  constantly  invited  Fabien  to  be  the  third 
with  Arthur  in  her  box  at  the  Italiens  or  at  first-night  per- 
formances ;  excusing  herself  by  saying  that  he  had  done  her 
this  or  that  service,  and  that  she  had  no  other  way  of  return- 
ing it. 


318  BEATRIX. 

Men  have  a  rivalry  of  conceit  among  themselves — in  com- 
mon indeed  with  women — in  their  desire  to  be  loved  for 
themselves.  Hence  of  all  flattering  attachments,  none  is 
more  highly  valued  than  that  of  a  Madame  Schontz  for  the 
man  she  makes  the  object  of  her  heart's  affections  in  contrast 
with  the  other  kind  of  love.  Such  a  woman  as  Madame 
Schontz,  who  played  at  being  a  fine  lady,  and  who  was  in 
truth  a  very  superior  woman,  was,  as  she  could  not  fail  to  be, 
a  subject  of  pride  to  Fabien,  who  fell  so  desperately  in  love 
with  her  that  he  never  appeared  in  her  presence  but  in  full 
dress,  patent-leather  shoes,  lemon-colored  gloves,  an  em- 
broidered and  frilled  shirt,  an  endless  variety  of  vests;  in 
short,  every  external  symptom  of  the  sincerest  adoration. 

A  month  before  the  conference  between  the  Duchess  and 
the  abbe,  Madame  Schontz  had  confided  the  secret  of  her 
birth  and  her  real  name  to  Fabien,  who  could  not  understand 
the  object  of  this  disclosure.  A  fortnight  later  Madame 
Schontz,  puzzled  by  the  Norman's  lack  of  comprehension, 
exclaimed  to  herself — 

"  Good  heavens,  what  an  idiot  I  am  !  Why,  he  believes 
that  I  am  in  love  with  him  !  " 

So  then  she  took  him  out  for  a  drive  in  the  Bois,  in  her 
carriage,  for  she  had  had  a  low  phaeton  with  a  pair  of  horses 
for  a  year  past. 

In  the  course  of  this  public  tiie-a-Ute  she  discussed  the 
question  of  her  ultimate  fate,  and  explained  that  she  wished 
to  get  married. 

"I  have  seven  hundred  thousand  francs,"  said  she;  "and 
I  may  confess  to  you  that  if  I  could  meet  with  a  man  of 
great  ambition,  who  could  understand  me  thoroughly,  I  would 
change  my  condition  ;  for,  do  you  know,  the  dream  of  my 
life  is  to  be  a  good  citizen's  wife,  connected  with  a  respectable 
family,  and  to  make  my  husband  and  children  all  very  happy." 

The  Norman  was  content  to  be  a  favorite  with  Madame 
Schontz ;  but  to  marry  her  seemed  madness  beyond  discussion 


BE  A  TRIX.  319 

to  a  bachelor  of  eight-and-thirty,  of  whom  the  revolution  of 
July  had  made  a  judge.  Seeing  his  hesitation,  Madame 
Schontz  made  the  Heir  a  butt  for  the  arrows  of  her  wit,  her 
irony,  and  her  scorn,  and  turned  to  Couture.  Within  a  week 
the  speculator,  tempted  by  a  hint  of  her  savings,  offered  her 
his  hand,  his  heart,  and  his  future  prospects — all  three  of 
equal  value. 

Madame  Schontz's  manoeuvres  had  reached  this  stage  when 
Madame  de  Grandlieu  began  to  inquire  as  to  the  manners  and 
customs  of  this  Beatrix  of  the  Rue  Saint-Georges. 

Following  the  Abbe  Brossette's  advice,  the  Duchess  begged 
the  Marquis  d'Ajuda  to  bring  to  her  house  that  prince  of 
political  jugglers,  the  famous  Comte  de  Trailles,  the  Arch- 
duke of  bohemia,  and  the  youngest  of  the  young,  though  he 
was  now  fifty.  Monsieur  d'Ajuda  arranged  to  dine  with 
Maxime  at  the  club  in  the  Rue  de  Beaune,  and  proposed  that 
they  should  go  on  together  to  play  dummy  whist  with  the 
Due  de  Grandlieu,  who,  having  had  an  attack  of  the  gout 
before  dinner,  would  be  alone.  Though  the  Duke's  son-in- 
law,  the  Duchess'  cousin,  had  every  right  to  introduce  him 
into  a  house  where  he  had  never  as  yet  set  foot,  Maxime  de 
Trailles  was  under  no  misapprehension  as  to  the  invitation 
thus  conveyed ;  he  concluded  that  either  the  Duke  or  the 
Duchess  wanted  to  make  use  of  him.  A  not  unimportant 
feature  of  the  time  is  the  club  life,  where  men  gamble  with 
others  whom  they  would  never  receive  in  their  own  houses. 

The  Duke  so  far  honored  Maxime  as  to  confess  that  he  was 
ill ;  after  fifteen  games  of  whist  he  went  to  bed,  leaving  his 
wife  with  Maxime  and  d'Ajuda.  The  Duchess,  supported 
by  the  Marquis,  explained  her  plans  to  Monsieur  de  Trailles 
and  asked  his  assistance,  while  seeming  only  to  ask  his  advice. 
Maxime  listened  to  the  end  without  saying  anything  decisive, 
and  would  not  speak  till  the  Duchess  had  asked  him  point- 
blank  to  help  her. 


320  BE  A  TR1X. 

"  I  quite  understand  the  matter,  madame,"  said  he,  after 
giving  her  one  of  those  looks — keen,  astute,  and  comprehen- 
sive— by  which  these  old  hands  can  compromise  their  allies. 
"  D'Ajuda  will  tell  you  that  I,  if  any  one  in  Paris,  can  man- 
age this  double  business,  without  your  appearing  in  it,  without 
its  being  known  even  that  I  have  been  here  this  evening.  But 
first  of  all,  we  must  settle  the  preliminaries  of  Leoben.  What 
do  you  propose  to  sacrifice  for  this  end?  " 

"Everything  that  is  required." 

"Very  good,  Madame  la  Duchesse.  Then,  as  the  reward 
of  my  services,  you  will  do  me  the  honor  of  receiving  here 
and  giving  your  countenance  to  Madame  la  Comtesse  de 
Trailles?" 

"  Are  you  married?"   exclaimed  d'Ajuda. 

"I  am  going  to  be  married  in  a  fortnight  to  the  only 
daughter  of  a  wealthy  family,  but  to  the  last  degree  middle- 
class  !  It  is  a  sacrifice  to  opinion ;  I  am  adopting  the  strict- 
est principles  of  my  government.  I  am  now  casting  my  old 
skin. 

"  So  you  will  understand,  Madame  la  Duchesse,  how  im- 
portant for  me  it  would  be  that  you  and  your  family  should 
take  up  my  wife.  I  am  quite  certain  to  be  elected  deputy 
when  my  father-in-law  retires  from  his  post,  as  he  intends 
doing,  and  I  have  been  promised  a  diplomatic  appointment 
that  befits  my  new  fortune.  I  cannot  see  why  my  wife  should 
not  be  as  well  received  as  Madame  de  Portenduere  in  a  society 
of  young  wives  where  such  stars  are  to  be  seen  as  Mesdames 
de  la  Bastie,  Georges  de  Maufrigneuse,  de  l'Estorade,  du 
Guenic,  d'Ajuda,  de  Restaud,  de  Rastignac,  and  de  Van- 
denesse.  My  wife  is  pretty,  and  I  will  undertake  to  wake 
her  up. 

'•'  Does  this  meet  your  views,  have  you  any  objections, 
Madame  la  Duchesse  ? 

"You  are  a  religious  woman;  and  if  you  say  yes,  your 
promise,  which  I  know  will  be  sacred,  will  help  me  immensely 


BEATRIX.  321 

in  my  changed  life.  And  it  will  be  another  good  action  ! 
Alas,  I  have  long  been  the  chief  of  a  rascally  crew ;  but  I 
want  to  be  quit  of  all  that.  After  all,  our  arms  are  good  : 
Azure,  a  chimera  or,  spouting  fire,  armed  gules,  scaled  vert ; 
a  chief  counter  ermine  ;  granted  by  Francis  I.,  who  thought 
it  desirable  to  give  a  patent  of  nobility  to  Louis  XL's  groom 
of  the  chambers — and  we  have  been  counts  since  the  time  of 
Catherine  de  Medicis." 

"I  will  receive  and  introduce  your  wife,"  replied  the 
Duchess  solemnly,  "and  my  family  shall  never  turn  its  back 
on  her,  I  give  you  my  word." 

"Oh,  Madame  la  Duchesse,"  exclaimed  Maxime,  visibly 
touched,  "if  Monsieur  le  Due  will  also  condescend  to  treat 
me  kindly,  I  promise  you  on  my  part  to  make  your  plan  suc- 
ceed with  no  great  loss  to  yourself.  But,"  he  went  on, 
after  a  pause,  "  you  must  pledge  yourself  to  obey  my  instruc- 
tions      This  is  the  last  intrigue  of  my  bachelor  life ;  it 

must  be  carried  through  with  all  the  more  care  because  it  is  a 
good  action,"  he  said,  smiling. 

"Obey?"  said  the  Duchess.  "But  must  I  appear  in  all 
this?" 

"Indeed,  madame,  I  will  not  compromise  you,"  cried 
Maxime,  "  and  I  respect  you  too  implicitly  to  ask  for  security. 
You  have  only  to  follow  my  advice.  Thus,  for  instance,  du 
Guenic  must  be  carried  off  by  his  wife  like  a  sacred  object, 
and  kept  away  for  two  years;  she  must  take  him  to  see  Swit- 
zerland, Italy,  Germany,  the  more  strange  and  distant  lands 
the  better " 

"Ah,  that  answers  a  fear  expressed  by  my  director,"  ex- 
claimed the  Duchess  guilelessly,  as  she  remembered  the  Abbe 
Brossette's  judicious  observation.  Maxime  and  d'Ajuda  could 
not  help  smiling  at  the  idea  of  this  coincidence  of  heaven  and 
hell. 

"To  prevent  Madame  de  Rochefide  from  ever  seeing  Calyste 
again,"  she  added,  "we  will  all  travel,  Juste  and  his  wife, 
21 


322  BEATRIX. 

Calyste  and  Sabine,  and  I.     I  will  leave  Clotilde  with  her 

father " 

"Do  not  let  us  shout  '  Victory '  just  yet,  madame,"  said 
Maxime.  "I  foresee  immense  difficulties;  I  shall  conquer 
them,  no  doubt.  Your  esteem  and  favor  are  a  prize  for  which 
I  will  plunge  through  much  dirt;  but  it  will  be " 

"  Dirt !  "  said  the  Duchess,  interrupting  the  modern  condot- 
tiere  with  a  face  equally  expressive  of  disgust  and  surprise. 

"Ay,  and  you  will  have  to  step  in  it,  madame,  since  I  act 
for  you.  Are  you  really  so  ignorant  of  the  pitch  of  blindness 
to  which  Madame  de  Rochefide  has  brought  your  son-in-law? 
I  know  it,  through  Nathan  and  Canalis,  between  whom  she 
was  hesitating  when  Calyste  threw  himself  into  that  lioness' 
maw.  Beatrix  has  made  the  noble  Breton  believe  that  she 
never  loved  any  one  but  him,  that  she  is  virtuous,  that  her 
attachment  to  Conti  was  of  the  head  only,  and  that  her  heart 
and  the  rest  had  very  little  to  do  with  it — a  musical  passion, 
in  short.     As  to  Rochefide,  that  was  a  matter  of  duty. 

"  So,  you  understand,  she  is  virginal.  And  she  proves  it 
by  forgetting  her  son  ;  for  a  year  past  she  has  not  made  the 
smallest  attempt  to  see  him.  The  little  Count  is,  in  point  of 
fact,  nearly  twelve  years  old,  and  he  has  found  a  mother  in 
Madame  Schontz ;  motherhood  is  the  mania,  as  you  know,  of 
women  of  that  stamp. 

"  Du  Guenic  would  be  cut  in  pieces,  and  let  his  wife  be  cut 
in  pieces,  for  Beatrix.  And  do  you  suppose  that  it  is  easy  to 
drag  a  man  back  from  the  depths  of  the  abyss  of  credulity? 
Why,  madame,  Shakespeare's  Iago  would  waste  all  his  hand- 
kerchiefs in  such  a  task.  It  is  generally  imagined  that  Othello, 
his  younger  brother  Orosmane,  and  Saint-Preux,  and  Ren6, 
and  Werther,  and  other  lovers  who  are  famous,  typify  love ! 
Their  icy-hearted  creators  never  knew  what  was  meant  by  an 
absorbing  passion,  Moliere  alone  had  a  suspicion  of  it.  Love, 
Madame  la  Duchesse,  is  not  an  attachment  to  a  noble  woman, 
to  a  Clarissa ;  a  great  achievement  that,  on  my  word  !     Love 


BEATRIX.  323 

is  to  say  to  one's  self:  '  The  woman  I  worship  is  a  wretch  ;  she 
is  deceiving  me,  she  will  deceive  me  again,  she  is  an  old  hand, 
she  smells  of  the  burning  pit !  ' — and  to  fly  to  her,  to  find  the 
blue  of  heaven,  the  flowers  of  Paradise.  That  is  how  Moliere 
loved,  and  how  we  love,  we  scamps  and  rips ;  for  I  can  cry  at 
the  great  scene  in  '  Arnolphe  !  '  That  is  how  your  son-in-law 
loves  Beatrix. 

"I  shall  have  some  difficulty  in  getting  Rochefide  from 
Madame  Schontz;  however,  Madame  Schontz  can,  no  doubt, 
be  got  to  abet  us ;  I  will  study  her  household.  As  to  Calyste 
and  Beatrix,  it  will  need  an  axe  to  divide  them,  treachery  of 
the  best  quality,  infamy  so  base  that  your  virtuous  imagination 
could  not  go  so  low  unless  your  director  held  your  hand. 
You  have  asked  for  the  impossible,  you  shall  have  it.  Still,  in 
spite  of  my  determination  to  employ  the  sword  and  fire,  I  can- 
not absolutely  pledge  myself  to  success.  I  know  lovers  who 
do  not  shrink  under  the  most  entire  disenchantment.  You 
are  too  virtuous  to  understand  the  power  of  women  who  have 
no  virtue." 

"  Do  not  attempt  these  infamies  till  I  shall  have  consulted 
the  Abbe  Brossette,  to  know  how  far  I  am  involved  in  them," 
cried  the  Duchess,  with  an  artlessness  that  revealed  how  selfish 
religion  can  be. 

"You  know  nothing  about  it,  my  dear  mother,"  said  the 
Marquis  d'Ajuda. 

On  the  steps,  while  waiting  for  Ajuda's  carriage  to  come  up, 
the  Marquis  said  to  Maxime — 

"You  have  frightened  our  good  Duchess." 

"  But  she  has  no  idea  of  the  difficulty  of  the  thing  she  wants 
done  !  Are  we  going  to  the  Jockey  Club  ?  Rochefide  must 
ask  me  to  dine  to-morrow  at  Schontz's  rooms;  in  the  course 
of  to-night  my  plans  will  be  laid,  and  I  shall  have  chosen  the 
pawns  in  my  chessboard  that  are  to  move  in  the  game  I  mean 
to  play.  In  the  days  of  her  splendor  Beatrix  would  have 
nothing  to  say  to  me  ;  I  will  settle  accounts  with  her,  and 


324  BE  A  TRIX. 

avenge  your  sister-in-law  so  cruelly,   that   perhaps  she  will 
think  I  have  overdone  it." 

On  the  following  day  Rochefide  told  Madame  Schontz  that 
Maxime  de  Trailles  was  coming  to  dinner.  This  was  to  warn 
her  to  display  the  utmost  luxury,  and  prepare  the  very  best 
fare  for  this  distinguished  connoisseur,  who  was  the  terror  of 
every  woman  of  Madame  Schontz's  class;  and  she  gave  as 
much  care  to  her  toilet  as  to  arranging  her  house  in  a  fitting 
way  to  receive  the  great  man. 

In  Paris  there  are  almost  as  many  royal  heads  as  there  are 
different  arts  or  special  sciences,  faculties,  or  professions;  the 
best  of  those  who  exercise  each  has  a  royal  dignity  proper  to 
himself;  he  is  revered  and  respected  by  his  peers,  who  know 
the  difficulties  of  his  work,  and  admire  unreservedly  the  man 
who  can  defy  them.  In  the  eyes  of  the  corps  de  ballet  and 
courtesans  Maxime  was  an  extremely  powerful  and  capable 
man,  for  he  had  succeeded  in  being  immensely  loved.  He 
was  admired  by  everybody  who  knew  how  hard  it  is  to  live 
in  Paris  on  decent  terms  with  your  creditors ;  and  he  had 
never  had  any  rival  in  elegance,  demeanor,  and  wit  but  the 
famous  de  Marsay,  who  had  employed  him  on  political  mis- 
sions. This  is  enough  to  account  for  his  interview  with  the 
Duchess,  his  influence  over  Madame  Schontz,  and  the  au- 
thority of  his  tone  in  a  conference  he  intended  to  hold  on  the 
Boulevard  des  Italiens  with  a  young  man,  who  was  already 
famous  though  recently  introduced  to  the  bohemia  of  Paris. 

As  he  arose  next  morning,  Maxime  de  Trailles  heard  Finot 
announced,  to  whom  he  had  sent  the  night  before ;  he  begged 
him  to  arrange  a  fortuitous  meeting  at  breakfast  at  the  Cafe 
Anglais  between  Couture,  Lousteau,  and  himself,  where  they 
would  chat  in  his  hearing.  Finot,  who  was  to  Maxime  de 
Trailles  as  a  lieutenant  in  the  presence  of  a  marshal  of  France, 
could  refuse  him  nothing ;  it  was  indeed  too  dangerous  to 
provoke  this  lion.     So  when  Maxime  came  in  to  breakfast,  he 


BE  A  TRIX.  32-5 

found  Finot  and  his  two  friends  at  a  table ;  the  conversation 
had  already  been  directed  toward  the  subject  of  Madame 
Schontz.  Couture,  cleverly  steered  by  Finot  and  Lousteau, 
who,  unknown  to  himself,  was  Finot's  abettor,  let  out  every- 
thing that  the  Comte  de  Trailles  wanted  to  know  about 
Madame  Schontz. 

By  one  o'clock,  Maxime,  chewing  his  toothpick,  was  talking 
to  du  Tillet  on  the  steps  of  Tortoni's,  where  speculators  form 
a  little  Bourse  preliminary  to  real  dealings  on  'Change.  He 
seemed  to  be  absorbed  in  business,  but  he  was  waiting  to  see  the 
young  Comte  de  la  Palferine,  who  must  pass  that  way  sooner 
or  later.  The  Boulevard  des  Italiens  is  now  what  the  Pont 
Neuf  was  in  1650;  everybody  who  is  anybody  crosses  it  at 
least  once  a  day. 

In  fact,  within  ten  minutes,  Maxime  took  his  hand  from  du 
Tillet's  arm,  and,  nodding  to  the  young  Prince  of  bohemia, 
said  with  a  smile,  "  Two  words  with  you,  Count !  " 

The  rivals,  one  a  setting  star,  the  other  a  rising  sun,  took 
their  seat  on  four  chairs  outside  the  Cafe  de  Paris.  Maxime 
was  careful  to  place  himself  at  a  sufficient  distance  from  cer- 
tain old  fogies  who,  from  sheer  habit,  plant  themselves  in  a 
row  against  the  wall  after  one  in  the  afternoon,  to  dry  out 
their  rheumatic  pains.  He  had  ample  reasons  for  distrusting 
these  old  men.     (See  "A  Man  of  Business.") 

"  Have  you  any  debts  ?  "  asked  Maxime  de  Trailles  of  the 
young  man. 

"  If  I  had  not,  should  I  be  worthy  to  succeed  you?  "  re- 
plied la  Palferine. 

"  When  I  ask  you  such  a  question,  it  is  not  to  cast  any 
doubt  on  the  matter,"  said  de  Trailles.  "  I  only  want  to  know 
if  they  amount  to  a  respectable  sum-total,  running  into  five  or 
six." 

"  Five  or  six  what  ?  "  said  la  Palferine. 

"Six  figures!  Do  you  owe  50,000,  100,000?  My  debts 
ran  up  to  600,000  francs." 


326  BE  A  TRIX. 

La  Palferine  took  off  his  hat  with  an  air  of  mocking  re- 
spect. 

"  If  I  had  credit  enough  to  borrow  a  hundred  thousand 
francs,"  replied  he,  "  I  would  cut  ray  creditors  and  go  to  live 
at  Venice  in  the  midst  of  its  masterpieces  of  painting,  spend- 
ing the  evening  at  the  theatre,  the  night  with  pretty  women, 
and " 

"At  my  age  where  would  you  be?  " 

"  I  should  not  last  so  long,"  replied  the  young  Count. 

Maxime  returned  his  rival's  civility  by  just  raising  his  hat 
with  an  expression  of  comical  gravity. 

"  That  is  another  view  of  life,"  he  replied,  as  a  connoisseur 
answering  a  connoisseur.      "  Then  you  owe ?  " 

"  Oh,  a  mere  trifle,  not  worth  confessing  to  an  uncle,  if  I 
had  one.  He  would  disinherit  me  for  such  a  contemptible 
sum  ;  six  thousand  francs." 

"  Six  thousand  give  one  more  trouble  than  a  hundred  thou- 
sand," said  Maxime  sententiously.  "La  Palferine,  you  have 
a  bold  wit,  you  have  even  more  wit  than  boldness ;  you  may 
go  far  and  become  a  political  personage.  Look  here — of  all 
the  men  who  have  rushed  into  the  career  which  I  have  run, 
and  who  have  been  pitted  against  me,  you  are  the  only  one  I 
ever  liked." 

La  Palferine  colored,  so  greatly  was  he  flattered  by  this  con- 
fession, made  with  gracious  bluntness,  by  the  greatest  of 
Parisian  adventurers.  This  instinct  of  vanity  was  a  confession 
of  inferiority  which  annoyed  him;  but  Maxime  understood 
the  reaction  easy  to  foresee  in  so  clever  a  man,  and  did  his 
best  to  correct  it  at  once  by  placing  himself  at  the  young 
man's  discretion. 

"Will  you  do  something  for  me  now  that  I  am  retiring 
from  the  Olympian  course  by  marrying,  and  marrying  well? 
I  would  do  a  good  deal  for  you,"  he  added. 

"  You  make  me  very  proud,"  said  la  Palferine ;  "  this  is  to 
put  the  fable  of  the  lion  and  the  mouse  into  practice." 


BE  A  TRIX.  327 

"  In  the  first  place,  I  will  lend  you  twenty  thousand  francs," 
Maxime  went  on. 

"Twenty  thousand  francs?  I  knew  that  if  I  walked  this 
boulevard  long  enough !  "  said  la  Palferine  in  a  paren- 
thesis. 

"  My  dear  boy,  you  must  set  yourself  up  in  some  sort  of 
style,"  said  Maxime,  smiling.  "Do  not  trot  about  on  your 
two  feet ;  set  up  six.  Do  as  I  have  done ;  I  never  got  lower 
than  a  tilbury " 

"  But  then  you  must  want  me  to  do  something  quite  beyond 
my  powers." 

"  No.  Only  to  make  a  woman  fall  in  love  with  you  within 
a  fortnight." 

"A  woman  of  the  town?" 

"Why?" 

"  That  would  be  out  of  the  question  ;  but  if  she  is  a  lady, 
quite  a  lady,  and  very  clever " 

"  She  is  a  marquise  of  the  first  water." 

"  You  want  her  letters,"  said  the  young  Count. 

"Ah,  you  are  a  man  after  my  own  heart !  "  cried  Maxime. 
"  No.     That  is  not  what  is  wanted." 

"  I  am  really  to  love  her?  " 

"Yes,  really  and  truly." 

"  If  I  am  to  go  beyond  aesthetics,  it  is  quite  impossible," 
said  la  Palferine.  "  With  regard  to  women,  you  see,  I  have 
a  kind  of  honesty;  we  may  trick  them,  but  not " 

"Then  I  have  not  been  mistaken,"  exclaimed  Maxime. 
"  Do  you  suppose  I  am  the  man  to  scheme  for  some  little 

tu'penny  meanness? No,  you  must  go,  you  must  dazzle 

and  conquer I  give  you  twenty  thousand,  and  ten  days 

to  win  in.     Till  this  evening  at  Madame  Schontz's." 

"  I  am  dining  there." 

"Good,"  said  Maxime.  "By-and-by,  when  you  want 
me,  you  will  find  me,  Monsieur  le  Comte,"  he  added,  with 
the  air  of  a  king  pledging  his  word  rather  than  promising. 


328  BE  A  TRIX. 

"The  poor  woman  has  done  you  some  terrible  mischief 
then?  "  asked  la  Palferine. 

"Do  not  try  to  sound  the  depth  of  my  waters,  my  son ;  but 
let  me  tell  you  that,  if  you  succeed,  you  will  secure  such 
powerful  interest,  that  when  you  are  tired  of  your  bohemian 
life  you  may,  like  me,  retire  on  the  strength  of  a  rich 
marriage." 

"Does  a  time  come,  then,  when  we  are  tired  of  amusing 
ourselves,"  said  la  Palferine,  "of  being  nothing,  of  living  as 
the  birds  live,  of  hunting  in  Paris  like  wild  men,  and  laugh- 
ing at  all  that  turns  up?  " 

"We  tire  of  everything,  even  of  hell !  "  said  Maxime  with 
a  laugh.     "  Till  this  evening." 

The  two  scamps,  the  old  one  and  the  young  one,  rose.  As 
Maxime  got  into  his  one-horse  cab,  he  said  to  himself — 

"Madame  d'Espard  cannot  endure  Beatrix;  she  will  help 
me.  To  the  Hotel  Grandlieu,"  he  cried  to  the  coachman, 
seeing  Rastignac  pass.     (Find  a  great  man  without  a  weakness.) 

Maxime  found  the  Duchess,  Madame  du  Guenic,  and  Clo- 
tilde  in  tears. 

"  What  has  happened  ?  "  he  asked  the  Duchess. 

"  Calyste  did  not  come  in — it  is  the  first  time,  and  my 
poor  Sabine  is  in  despair." 

"Madame  la  Duchesse,"  said  Maxime,  drawing  the  pious 
lady  into  a  window-bay,  "  in  the  name  of  God,  who  will 
judge  us,  do  not  breathe  a  word  as  to  my  devotion  ;  pledge 
d'Ajuda  to  secrecy ;  never  let  Calyste  know  anything  of  our 
plots,  or  we  shall  fight  a  duel  to  the  death.  When  I  told  you 
this  would  not  cost  you  much,  I  meant  that  you  would  not 
have  to  spend  any  monstrous  sum.  I  want  about  twenty 
thousand  francs,  but  everything  else  is  my  business  ;  you  may 
have  to  find  some  good  appointments — one  receiver-general's, 
perhaps. ' ' 

The  Duchess  and  Maxime  left  the  room.  When  Madame 
de  Grandlieu  came  back  to  her  two  daughters,  she  heard  a 


BE  A  TRIX.  329 

fresh  lament  from  Sabine,  full  of  domestic  details,  even  more 
heartbreaking  than  those  which  had  put  an  end  to  the  young 
wife's  happiness. 

"Becalm,  my  child,"  said  the  Duchess  to  her  daughter; 
"Beatrix  will  pay  dearly  for  all  your  tears  and  misery;  she 
will  endure  ten  humiliations  for  each  one  of  yours." 

Madame  Schontz  had  sent  word  to  Claud  Vignon,  who  had 
frequently  expressed  a  wish  to  make  the  acquaintance  of 
Maxime  de  Trailles ;  she  invited  Couture,  Fabien,  Bixiou, 
Leon  de  Lora,  la  Palferine,  and  Nathan,  whom  Rochefide 
begged  to  have  for  Maxime's  benefit.  Thus  she  had  a  party 
of  nine,  all  of  the  first  water,  excepting  du  Ronceret ;  but 
the  Heir's  Norman  vanity  and  brutality  were  a  match  for 
Claud  Vignon's  literary  force,  for  Nathan's  poetry,  la  Pal- 
ferine's  acumen,  Couture's  keen  eye  to  the  main  chance, 
Bixiou's  wit,  Finot's  foresight,  Maxime's  depth,  and  Leon  de 
Lora's  genius. 

Madame  Schontz,  who  aimed  at  appearing  young  and  hand- 
some, fortified  herself  in  such  a  toilet  as  women  of  that  class 
alone  can  achieve — a  point-lace  cape  of  spider-web  fineness; 
a  blue  velvet  dress,  of  which  the  elegant  bodice  was  buttoned 
with  opals ;  her  hair  in  smooth  bands  and  shining  like  ebony. 
Madame  Schontz  owed  her  fame  as  a  beauty  to  the  brilliancy 
and  color  of  a  warm,  creamy  complexion  like  a  Creole's,  a 
face  full  of  original  details,  with  the  clean-cut,  firm  features 
— of  which  the  Comtesse  de  Merlin  was  the  most  famous  ex- 
ample and  the  most  perennially  young — peculiar  perhaps  to 
southern  faces.  Unluckily,  since  her  life  had  been  so  calm, 
so  easy,  little  Madame  Schontz  had  grown  decidedly  far. 
Her  neck  and  shoulders,  bewitchingly  round,  were  getting 
coarse.  Still,  in  France  a  woman's  face  is  thought  all-impor- 
tant, and  a  fine  head  will  secure  a  long  life  to  an  ungraceful 
shape. 

"Mv  dear  child,"  said  Maxime  as  he  came  in  and  kissed 


330  BE  A  TRIX. 

Aurelie  on  the  forehead,  "Rochefide  wanted  me  to  see  your 
home,  where  I  have  not  yet  been ;  it  is  almost  worthy  of  his 
income  of  four  hundred  thousand  francs.  Well,  he  had  less 
by  fifty  thousand  a  year  when  he  first  knew  you;  in  less  than 
five  years  you  have  gained  for  him  as  much  as  any  other 
woman  —  Antonia,  Malaga,  Cadine,  or  Florentine — would 
have  devoured." 

"I  am  not  a  baggage — I  am  an  artist!"  said  Madame 
Schontz,  with  some  dignity.  "  I  hope  to  end  by  founding  a 
family  of  respectable  folk,  as  they  say  in  the  play." 

"It  is  dreadful,  we  all  getting  married,"  said  Maxime, 
dropping  into  a  chair  by  the  £re.  "  Here  am  I  within  a  few 
days  of  making  a  Comtesse  Maxime." 

' '  Oh  !  how  I  should  like  to  see  her  ! ' '  cried  Madame  Schontz. 
"  But  allow  me,"  she  went  on,  "  to  introduce  Monsieur  Claud 
Vignon — Monsieur  Claud  Vignon,  Monsieur  de  Trailles." 

"Ah,  it  was  you  who  let  Camille  Maupin — mine  hostess  of 
literature — go  into  a  convent?  "  cried  Maxime.  "  After  you, 
God  !  No  one  ever  did  me  so  much  honor.  Mademoiselle 
des  Touches  made  a  Louis  XIV.  of  you,  monsieur." 

"And  this  is  how  history  is  written  !  "  said  Claud  Vignon. 
"  Did  you  not  know  that  her  fortune  was  spent  in  releasing 
Monsieur  du  Guenic's  estates?     If  she  knew  that  Calyste  had 

fallen  into  the  arms  of  her  ex-friend  ! "   (Maxime  kicked 

the  critic's  foot,  looking  at  Monsieur  de  Rochefide)  "  on  my 
word,  I  believe  she  would  come  out  of  her  nunnery  to  snatch 
him  from  her." 

"I  declare,  my  dear  Rochefide,"  said  Maxime,  finding 
that  his  warning  had  failed  to  check  Claud  Vignon,  "in  your 
place  I  would  give  my  wife  her  fortune,  that  the  world  might 
not  suppose  that  she  had  taken  up  Calyste  du  Guenic  for  want 
of  money." 

"Maxime  is  right!"  said  Madame  Schontz,  looking  at 
Arthur,  who  colored  violently.  "  If  I  have  saved  you  some 
thousand  francs  to  invest,  you  could  not  spend  them  better. 


BEATRIX.  331 

I  should  have  secured  the  happiness  of  both  husband  and  wife. 
What  a  good-conduct  stripe  !  " 

"  I  never  thought  of  it,"  replied  the  Marquis.  Then,  after 
a  pause,  "  But  it  is  true ;  one  is  a  gentleman  first,  and  a  hus- 
band after." 

"Let  me  advise  you  of  the  appropriate  moment  for  your 
generosity,"  said  Maxime. 

"Arthur,"  said  Aurelie,  "  Maxime  is  right.  Our  generous 
actions,  you  see,  old  boy,  must  be  done  as  Couture's  shares 
must  be  sold,"  and  she  looked  in  the  glass  to  see  who  was 
coming  in,  "  in  the  nick  of  time." 

Couture  was  followed  by  Finot,  and  in  a  few  minutes  all 
the  guests  were  assembled  in  the  handsome  blue-and-gold 
drawing-room  of  the  "Hotel  Schontz,"  as  the  men  called 
their  place  of  meeting  since  Rochefide  had  bought  it  for  his 
Ninon  II.  On  seeing  la  Pal  ferine  come  in  the  last,  Maxime 
went  up  to  him,  drew  him  into  a  recess,  and  gave  him  the 
twenty  bank-notes. 

"Above  all,  do  not  be  stingy  with  them,"  said  he,  with 
the  native  grace  of  a  spendthrift. 

"  No  one  knows  so  well  as  you  how  to  double  the  value  of 
what  appears  to  be  a  gift,"  replied  la  Palferine. 

"  Then  you  agree  ?  " 

"Well,  since  I  take  the  money!"  replied  the  youth,  with 
some  pride  and  irony. 

"Very  well.  Nathan,  who  is  here,  will  take  you  within 
two  days  to  call  on  the  Marquise  de  Rochefide,"  said  Maxime 
in  his  ear. 

La  Palferine  jumped  as  he  heard  the  name. 

"Do  not  fail  to  declare  yourself  madly  in  love  with  her; 
and,  to  arouse  no  suspicions,  drink — wine,  liqueurs  no  end! 
I  will  tell  Aurelie  to  put  you  next  to  Nathan.  Only,  my  son, 
we  must  now  meet  every  night  on  the  Boulevard  de  la  Made- 
leine, at  one  in  the  morning;  you  to  report  progress,  and  I 
to  give  you  instructions." 


332  BEATRIX. 

"  I  will  be  there,  master,"  said  the  young  Count,  with  a 
bow. 

"  What  makes  you  ask  a  fellow  to  dine  with  us  who  comes 
dressed  like  a  waiter?"  said  Maxime  to  Madame  Schontz  in 
a  whisper  and  looking  at  du  Ronceret. 

"  Have  you  never  seen  '  The  Heir?'  Du  Ronceret,  from 
Alencon." 

"Monsieur,"  said  Maxime  to  Fabien,  "you  must  know 
my  friend  d'Esgrignon  ?" 

"  Victorien  dropped  the  acquaintance  long  since,"  replied 
Fabien  ;   "  but  we  were  very  intimate  as  boys." 

The  dinner  was  such  as  can  only  be  given  in  Paris,  and  in 
the  houses  of  these  perfectly  reckless  women,  for  their  refined 
luxury  amazes  the  most  fastidious.  It  was  at  a  supper  of  this 
kind,  given  by  a  rich  and  handsome  courtesan  like  Madame 
Schontz,  that  Paganini  declared  that  he  had  never  eaten  such 
food  at  the  table  of  any  sovereign,  nor  drunk  such  wine  in 
any  prince's  house,  nor  heard  such  witty  conversation,  nor 
seen  such  attractive  and  tasteful  magnificence. 

Maxime  and  Madame  Schontz  were  the  first  to  return  to  the 
drawing-room,  at  about  ten  o'clock,  leaving  the  other  guests, 
who  had  ceased  to  veil  their  anecdotes,  and  who  boasted  of 
their  powers,  with  sticky  lips  glued  to  liqueur-glasses  that  they 
could  not  empty. 

"Well,  pretty  one,"  said  Maxime,  "you  are  quite  right. 
Yes,  I  came  to  get  something  out  of  you.  It  is  a  serious  mat- 
ter ;  you  must  give  up  Arthur.  But  I  will  see  that  he  gives 
you  two  hundred  thousand  francs." 

"And  why  am  I  to  give  him  up,  poor  old  boy?" 

"To  marry  that  noodle  who  came  from  Alencon  on  pur- 
pose. He  has  already  been  a  judge  ;  I  will  get  him  made 
president  of  the  court  in  the  place  of  old  Blondet,  who  is 
nearly  eighty-two,  and,  if  you  know  how  to  catch  the  wind, 
your  husband  will  be  elected  deputy.  You  will  be  people  of 
importance,  and  crush  Madame  la  Comtesse  du  Bruel -" 


BE  A  TRIX.  333 

"Never!"  cried  the  wily  Madame  Schontz  ;  "she  is  a 
countess." 

"  Is  he  of  the  stuff  they  make  counts  of  ?  " 

"  Well,  he  has  a  coat-of-arms,"  said  Aurelie,  seeking  a  letter 
in  a  handsome  bag  that  hung  by  the  fireplace  and  handing 
it  to  Maxime.  "  What  does  it  all  mean  ?  There  are  combs 
on  it." 

"  He  bears  :  Quarterly,  the  first  argent  three  combs  gules, 
second  and  third  three  bunches  of  grapes  with  stems  and 
leaves  all  proper,  fourth  azure  four  pens  or,  laid  in  fret. 
Motto,  Servir,  and  a  squire's  helmet.  No  great  things ! 
They  were  granted  by  Louis  XV.  They  must  have  had  some 
haberdasher  grandfather,  the  maternal  ancestry  made  money 
in  wine,  and  the  du  Ronceret  who  got  the  arms  must  have 
been  a  registrar.  But  if  you  succeed  in  throwing  off  Arthur, 
the  du  Roncerets  shall  be  Barons  at  least,  I  promise  you,  my 
pretty  pigeon.  You  see,  child,  you  must  lie  in  pickle  for  five 
or  six  years  in  the  country  if  you  want  to  bury  la  Schontz  in 
Madame  la  Presidente.  The  rascal  cast  eyes  at  you,  of  which 
the  meaning  was  quite  clear  ;  you  have  hooked  him." 

"  No,"  said  Aurelie.  "When  I  offered  him  my  hand,  he 
was  as  quiet  as  brandy  is  in  the  market." 

"  I  will  make  up  his  mind  for  him  if  he  is  tipsy.  Go  and 
see  how  they  are  all  getting  on." 

"  It  is  not  worth  the  trouble  of  going.  I  hear  no  one  but 
Bixiou  giving  one  of  his  caricatures,  to  which  nobody  is  lis- 
tening; but  I  know  my  Arthur;  he  thinks  it  necessary  to  be 
polite  to  Bixiou,  and  he  is  staring  at  him  still,  even  if  his  eyes 
are  shut." 

"Let  us  go  back  then." 

"  By-the-by,  for  whose  benefit  am  I  doing  all  this, 
Maxime?  "  said  Madame  Schontz  suddenly. 

"For  Madame  de  Rochefide,"  replied  Maxime  bluntly. 
"  It  is  impossible  to  patch  up  matters  between  her  and  Arthur 
so  long  as  you  keep  hold  of  him.     To  her  it  is  a  matter  of 

Y 


334  BEATRIX. 

being  at  the  head  of  her  house  and  having   four  hundred 
thousand  francs  a  year." 

"'And  she  only  offers  me  two  hundred  thousand  francs 
down  ?  I  will  have  three  hundred  thousand  if  she  is  at  the 
bottom  of  it.  What,  I  have  taken  every  care  of  her  brat  and 
her  husband,  I  have  filled  her  place  in  every  way,  and  she  is 
to  beat  me  down  ?  Look  here,  my  dear  fellow,  I  shall  then 
have  just  a  million.  And  beside  that,  you  promise  me  the 
presidency  of  the  court  at  Alencon  if  only  I  can  make  up  for 
Madame  du  Ronceret " 

"  Right  you  are  !  "  said  Maxime. 

"  How  I  shall  be  bored  in  that  little  town  !  "  said  Aurelie 
philosophically.  "I  have  heard  so  much  about  that  part  of 
the  country  from  d'Esgrignon  and  Madame  Val-Noble  that 
it  is  as  though  I  had  lived  there  already." 

"But  if  I  could  promise  you  the  help  of  the  title?  " 

"Oh,  Maxime,  if  you  can  really  do  that.  Ay,  but  the 
pigeon  refuses  to  fly " 

"And  he  is  very  ugly,  with  his  skin  like  a  plum;  he  has 
bristles  instead  of  whiskers,  and  looks  like  a  wild  boar, 
though  he  has  eyes  like  a  bird  of  prey.  He  will  be  the  finest 
president  ever  seen.  Be  easy  !  In  ten  minutes  he  will  be 
singing  you  Isabelle's  song  in  the  fourth  act  of  'Robert  le 
Diable,'  ' Je  suis  a  tes genoux'  (I  am  at  thy  knees).  But  you 
must  undertake  to  send  Arthur  back  to  fall  at  Beatrix's  feet." 

"  It  is  difficult,  but  among  us  we  may  manage  it." 

At  about  half-past  ten  the  gentlemen  came  into  the  drawing- 
room  to  take  coffee.  In  the  position  in  which  Madame 
Schontz,  Couture,  and  du  Ronceret  found  themselves,  it  is 
easy  to  imagine  the  effect  that  was  produced  on  the  ambitious 
Norman  by  the  following  conversation  between  Couture  and 
Maxime  in  a  corner,  carried  on  indeed  in  an  undertone  that 
they  might  not  be  overheard,  but  which  Fabien  contrived  to 
hear. 

"My  dear  fellow,  if  you  were  wise,  you  would  accept  the  place 


BE  A  TRIX.  335 

of  receiver-general  in  some  out-of-the-way  place;  Madame  de 
Rochefide  would  get  it  for  you.  Aurelie's  million  francs 
would  enable  you  to  deposit  the  security,  and  you  would 
settle  everything  on  her  as  your  wife.  Then,  if  you  steered 
your  boat  cleverly,  you  would  be  made  deputy,  and  the  only 
premium  I  ask  for  having  saved  you  will  be  your  vote  in  the 
Chamber." 

'•'  I  shall  always  be  proud  to  serve  under  you." 

"Oh,  my  boy,  you  have  had  a  very  close  shave!  Just 
fancy,  Aurelie  thought  herself  in  love  with  that  Norman  from 
Alencon  ;  she  wanted  to  have  him  made  a  baron,  president 
of  the  court  in  his  native  town,  and  officer  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor.  The  noodle  never  guessed  what  Madame  Schontz 
was  worth,  and  you  owe  your  good  fortune  to  her  disgust  ;  so 
do  not  give  such  a  clever  woman  time  to  change  her  mind. 
For  my  part,  I  will  go  and  put  the  irons  in  the  fire." 

So  Maxime  left  Couture  in  the  seventh  heaven  of  happiness, 
and  said  to  la  Pal  ferine,  "  Shall  I  take  you  with  me,  my  son  ?  " 

By  eleven  o'clock  Aurelie  found  herself  left  with  Couture, 
Fabien,  and  Rochefide.  Arthur  was  asleep  in  an  armchair ; 
Couture  and  Fabien  were  trying  to  outstay  each  other,  but 
without  success.  Madame  Schontz  put  an  end  to  this  contest 
by  saying  to  Couture,  "Till  to-morrow,  dear  boy!  "  which 
he  took  in  good  part. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  Fabien,  in  a  low  voice,  "when  you 
saw  me  so  unready  to  respond  to  the  proposal  you  made  me 
indirectly,  do  not  imagine  that  there  was  the  smallest  hesita- 
tion on  my  part ;  but  you  do  not  know  my  mother ;  she 
would  never  consent  to  my  happiness " 

"You  are  of  age  to  address  her  with  a  sommation  respec- 
tueuse*  my  dear  fellow,"  retorted  Aurelie  quite  insolently. 
"  However,  if  you  are  afraid  of  mamma,  you  are  not  the  man 
for  my  money." 

*A  legal  form  by  which  French  sons  can  reduce  the  obstinacy  of  recal- 
citrant parents  when  they  refuse  their  consent  to  a  marriage. 


336  BE  A  TRIX. 

"Josephine  !  "  said  the  Heir  affectionately,  as  he  boldly 
put  his  right  arm  around  Madame  Schontz's  waist,  "I  be- 
lieved that  you  loved  me." 

"And  what  then?" 

"  I  might  perhaps  pacify  my  mother,  and  gain  more  than 
her  consent." 

"How?" 

"If  you  would  use  your  influence " 

"  To  get  you  created  baron,  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor, 
and  president  of  the  court,  my  boy — is  that  it  ?  Listen  to 
me,  I  have  done  so  many  things  in  the  course  of  my  life  that 
I  am  capable  of  being  virtuous  !  I  could  be  an  honest  woman, 
a  loyal  wife,  and  take  my  husband  in  tow  to  upper  regions ; 
but  I  insist  on  being  so  loved  by  him  that  not  a  glance,  not 
a  thought,  shall  ever  be  given  to  any  heart  but  mine,  not  even 

in   a  wish How  does  that  do  for  you  ?     Do  not  bind 

yourself  rashly;   it  is  for  life,  my  boy." 

"With  a  woman  like  you,  done,  without  looking  twice  !  " 
cried  Fabien,  as  much  intoxicated  by  a  look  as  he  was  by  the 
West  Indian  liqueurs. 

"You  shall  never  repent  of  that  word,  my  brave  boy;  you 
shall  be  a  peer  of  France.  As  to  that  poor  old  chap,"  she 
went  on,  looking  at  Rochefide  asleep,  "  it  is  a,  double  1,  all, 
o-v-e-r,  ver — all  over  !  " 

She  said  it  so  cleverly  and  so  prettily  that  Fabien  seized 
Madame  Schontz  and  kissed  her  with  an  impulse  of  passion 
and  joy,  in  which  the  intoxication  of  love  and  wine  were 
second  to  that  of  happiness  and  ambition. 

"But  now,  my  dear  child,"  said  she,  "you  must  remem- 
ber henceforth  to  behave  respectfully  to  your  wife,  not  to 
play  the  lover,  and  to  leave  me  to  get  out  of  my  slough  as 
decently  as  may  be.  And  Couture,  who  believed  himself  a 
rich  man  and  receiver-general ! " 

"I  have  a  horror  of  the  man,"  said  Fabien.  "I  wish  I 
might  never  see  him  again  !" 


BEATRIX.  337 

"I  will  have  him  here  no  more,"  said  the  courtesan  with 
a  little  prudish  air.  "Now  that  we  understand  each  other, 
my  Fabien,  go;  it  is  one  o'clock." 

This  little  scene  gave  rise  in  the  Schontz  household,  hith- 
erto so  perfectly  happy,  to  a  phase  of  domestic  warfare  be- 
tween Arthur  and  Aurelie,  such  as  any  covert  interest  on  the 
part  of  one  of  the  partners  is  certain  to  give  rise  to. 

The  very  next  day  Arthur  woke  to  find  himself  alone ; 
Madame  Schontz  was  cold,  as  women  of  that  sort  know 
how  to  be. 

"  What  happened  last  night?"  asked  he  at  breakfast,  look- 
ing at  Aurelie. 

"That  is  the  way  of  it  in  Paris,"  said  she.  "You  go 
to  bed  on  a  wet  night,  next  morning  the  pavement  is  dry, 
and  everything  so  frozen  that  the  dust  flies ;  would  you  like 
a  brush?" 

"  But  what  ails  you,  dear  little  woman  ?  " 

"  Go,  go  to  your  great  gawk  of  a  wife  !  " 

"My  wife?"  cried  the  unhappy  Marquis. 

"Couldn't  I  guess  why  you  brought  Maxime  here?  You 
wanted  to  make  it  up  with  Madame  de  Rochefide,  who  wants 
you  perhaps  for  some  tell-tale  baby.  And  I,  whom  you  think 
so  cunning,  was  advising  you  to  give  her  back  her  money  ! 
Oh,  I  know  your  tricks.  After  five  years  my  gentleman  is 
tired  of  me.  I  am  fat,  Beatrix  is  bony  ;  it  will  be  a  change. 
You  are  not  the  first  man  I  have  known  with  a  taste  for 
skeletons.  Your  Beatrix  dresses  well,  too,  and  you  are  one 
of  the  men  who  like  a  clotheshorse.  Beside,  you  want  to 
send  Monsieur  de  Guenic  packing  !  That  would  be  a  tri- 
umph !  How  well  it  will  look  !  Won't  it  be  talked  about ! 
You  will  be  quite  a  hero  !  " 

At  two  o'clock  Madame  Schontz  had  not  come  to  an  end 

of  her  ironical  banter,  in  spite  of  Arthur's  protestations.     She 

said  she  was  engaged  to  dine  out.     She  desired  the  "  faithless 

one  "  to  go  without   her  to  the  Italiens  ;   she  was  going  to  a 

22 


338  BE  A  TRIX. 

first-night  performance  at  the  Ambigu-Comique,  and  to  make 
the  acquaintance  of  a  charming  woman,  Lousteau's  mistress, 
Madame  de  la  Baudraye. 

To  prove  his  eternal  attachment  to  his  little  Aurelie  and 
his  aversion  for  his  wife,  Arthur  offered  to  set  out  the  very 
next  day  for  Italy  and  to  live  as  her  husband  in  Rome,  Na- 
ples, or  Florence,  whichever  Aurelie  might  prefer,  giving  her 
sixty  thousand  francs  a  year. 

"All  that  is  pure  whims,"  said  she.  "  That  will  not  hinder 
your  making  it  up  with  your  wife,  and  you  will  be  wise  to 
do  so." 

At  the  end  of  this  formidable  discussion,  Arthur  and  Aurelie 
parted,  he  to  play  and  dine  at  the  club,  she  to  dress  and  spend 
the  evening  tete-a-tite  with  Fabien. 

Monsieur  de  Rochefide  found  Maxime  at  the  club,  and 
poured  out  his  complaints,  as  a  man  who  felt  happiness  being 
torn  up  from  his  heart  by  the  roots  that  clung  by  every  fibre. 
Maxime  listened  to  the  Marquise's  lament  as  polite  people  can 
listen  while  thinking  of  something  else. 

"I  am  a  capital  counselor  in  such  cases,  my  dear  fellow," 
said  he.  "Well,  you  make  a  great  mistake  in  letting  Aurelie 
see  how  much  you  care  for  her.  Let  me  introduce  you  to 
Madame  Antonia — a  heart  to  let.  You  will  see  la  Schontz 
sing  very  small.  Why,  she  is  seven-and-thirty,  is  your  Schontz, 
and  Antonia  is  but  twenty-six  !  And  such  a  woman  !  Her 
wits  are  not  all  in  her  brains,  I  can  tell  you.  Indeed,  she  is 
my  pupil.  If  Madame  Schontz  still  struts  out  her  pride,  do 
you  know  what  it  means?  " 

"On  my  honor,  no." 

"That  she  means  to  get  married;  and  then  nothing  can 
hinder  her  from  throwing  you  over.  After  a  six  years'  lease 
the  woman  has  a  right  to  do  it.  But  if  you  will  listen  to  me, 
you  can  do  better  than  that.  At  the  present  time  your  wife 
is  worth  a  thousand  Schontzes  and  Antonias  of  the  Saint- 
Georges  quarter.     She  will  be  hard  to  win,  but  not  impos- 


BEATRIX.  339 

sible  ;  and  she  will  make  you  as  happy  as  Orgon  !  At  any 
rate,  if  you  do  not  wish  to  look  like  a  fool,  come  to  supper  to- 
night at  Antonia's." 

"  No,  I  love  Aurelie  too  well ;  I  will  not  allow  her  to  have 
any  cause  for  blaming  me." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  fellow  !  what  a  life  you  are  making  for  your- 
self!  "  cried  Maxime. 

"  It  is  eleven  o'clock.  She  will  have  returned  from  the 
Ambigu,"  said  Rochefide,  going  off.  And  he  roared  at  the 
coachman  to  drive  as  fast  as  he  could  to  the  Rue  de  la 
Bruyere. 

Madame  Schontz  had  given  distinct  orders,  and  monsieur 
was  admitted  exactly  as  though  he  and  madame  were  the  best 
of  friends;  but  madame,  informed  of  monsieur's  return,  took 
care  to  let  monsieur  hear  the  slam  of  her  dressing-room  door, 
shut  as  doors  are  shut  when  a  lady  is  taken  by  surprise.  Then, 
on  the  corner  of  the  piano  was  Fabien's  hat,  intentionally  for- 
gotten, and  conspicuously  fetched  away  by  the  maid  as  soon 
as  monsieur  and  madame  were  engaged  in  conversation. 

"  So  you  did  not  go  to  the  play,  little  woman  ?  " 

"No,  I  changed  my  mind." 

"And  who  has  been  here  ?  "  he  asked  quite  simply,  seeing 
the  maid  carry  away  the  hat. 

"Nobody." 

To  this  audacious  falsehood  Arthur  could  only  bow  his 
head  ;  this  was  passing  under  the  Caudine  forks  of  submission. 
True  love  has  this  magnanimous  cowardice.  Arthur  behaved 
to  Madame  Schontz  as  Sabine  did  to  Calyste,  as  Calyste  did 
to  Beatrix. 

Within  a  week  there  was  a  change  like  that  of  a  grub  to  a 
butterfly  in  the  handsome  and  clever  young  Count,  Charles- 
Edouard  Rusticoli  de  la  Palferine  (the  hero  of  the  sketch 
called  "A  Prince  of  Bohemia,"  which  makes  it  unnecessary 
to  describe  his  person  and  character  in  this  place). .    Hitherto 


340  BEATRIX. 

he  had  lived  very  poorly,  making  up  his  deficits  with  the 
audacity  of  a  Danton  ;  now  he  paid  his  debts,  by  Maxime's 
advice  he  had  a  little  low  carriage,  he  was  elected  to  the 
Jockey-Club,  to  the  club  in  the  Rue  de  Grammont,  he  be- 
came superlatively  elegant.  Finally,  he  published  in  the 
"Journal  des  Debats  "  a  novel  which  earned  him  in  a  few 
days  such  a  reputation  as  professional  writers  do  not  achieve 
after  many  years  of  labor  and  success,  for  in  Paris  nothing  is 
so  vehement  as  what  is  to  prove  ephemeral.  Nathan,  per- 
fectly certain  that  the  Count  would  never  write  anything 
more,  praised  this  elegant  and  impertinent  youth  to  Madame 
de  Rochefide  in  such  terms  that  Beatrix,  spurred  on  by  the 
poet's  account  of  him,  expressed  a  wish  to  see  this  prince  of 
fashionable  vagabonds. 

"  He  will  be  all  the  more  delighted  to  come  here,"  replied 
Nathan,  "  because  I  know  he  is  so  much  in  love  with  you  as 
to  commit  any  folly." 

"  But  he  has  committed  every  folly  already,  I  am  told," 
said  Beatrix. 

"Every  folly?  No,"  replied  Nathan,  "he  has  not  yet 
been  so  foolish  as  to  love  a  decent  woman." 

A  few  days  after  the  plot  of  the  boulevard  had  been  laid 
between-  Maxime  and  the  seductive  Count  Charles-Edouard, 
this  young  gentleman,  on  whom  nature  had  bestowed — in 
irony,  no  doubt — a  pathetically  melancholy  countenance, 
made  his  first  incursion  into  the  nest  in  the  Rue  de  Cour- 
celles,  where  the  dove,  to  receive  him,  fixed  an  evening  when 
Calyste  was  obliged  to  go  out  with  his  wife.  If  ever  you  meet 
la  Palferine — or  when  you  come  to  the  "  Prince  of  Bohemia  " 
in  the  third  part  of  this  long  picture  of  modern  manners — 
you  will  at  once  understand  the  triumph  achieved  in  a  single 
evening  by  that  sparkling  wit,  those  astonishing  high  spirits, 
especially  if  you  can  conceive  of  the  capital  by-play  of  the 
sponsor  who  agreed  to  second  him  on  this  occasion.  Nathan 
was  a  good  fellow ;  he  showed  off  the  young  Count  as  a  jeweler 


BEATRIX.  341 

shows  off  a  necklace  he  wants  to  sell,  by  making  the  stones 
sparkle  in  the  light. 

La  Palferine  discreetly  was  the  first  to  leave  ;  he  left  Nathan 
and  the  Marquise  together,  trusting  to  the  great  author's  co- 
operation, which  was  admirable.  Seeing  the  Marquise  quite 
amazed,  he  fired  her  fancy  by  a  certain  reticence,  which 
stirred  in  her  such  chords  of  curiosity  as  she  did  not  know 
existed  in  her.  Nathan  gave  her  to  understand  that  it  was 
not  so  much  la  Palferine's  wit  that  won  him  his  successes  with 
women  as  his  superior  gifts  in  the  art  of  love ;  and  he  cried 
him  up  beyond  measure. 

This  is  the  place  for  setting  forth  a  novel  result  of  the  great 
law  of  contrasts,  which  gives  rise  to  many  a  crisis  in  the 
human  heart,  and  accounts  for  so  many  vagaries  that  we  are 
forced  to  refer  to  it  sometimes,  as  well  as  to  the  law  of  affini- 
ties. Courtesans — including  all  that  portion  of  the  female 
sex  which  is  named,  unnamed,  and  renamed  every  quarter  of 
a  century — all  preserve,  in  the  depths  of  their  hearts,  a  vigor- 
ous wish  to  recover  their  liberty,  to  feel  a  pure,  saintly,  and 
heroic  love  for  some  man  to  whom  they  can  sacrifice  every- 
thing. (See  "A  Harlot's  Progress.")  They  feel  this  anti- 
thetical need  so  keenly,  that  it  is  rare  to  find  a  woman  of  the 
kind  who  has  not  many  times  aspired  to  become  virtuous 
*hrough  love.  The  most  frightful  deception  cannot  discour- 
age them.  Women  who  are,  on  the  contrary,  restrained  by 
education,  and  by  their  rank  in  life,  fettered  by  the  dignity 
of  their  family,  living  in  the  midst  of  wealth,  crowned  by  a 
halo  of  virtue,  are  tempted — secretly,  of  course — to  try  the 
tropical  regions  of  passion.  These  two  antagonistic  types  of 
women  have,  at  the  bottom  of  their  hearts,  the  one  a  little 
craving  for  virtue,  the  other  a  little  craving  for  dissipation, 
which  Jean-Jacques  Rousseau  first  had  the  courage  to  point 
out.  In  those. it  is  the  last  gleam  of  the  divine  light  not  yet 
extinct ;  in  these  it  is  a  trace  of  the  primitive  clay. 

This  remaining  claw  of  the  beast  was  tickled,  this  hair  of 


342  BEATRIX. 

the  devil  was  pulled  with  the  greatest  skill,  by  Nathan.  The 
Marquise  seriously  wondered  whether  she  had  not  hitherto 
been  the  dupe  of  her  intellect,  whether  her  education  was 
complete.     Vice  ! — is  perhaps  the  desire  to  know  everything. 

Next  day  Calyste  was  seen  by  Beatrix  as  what  he  was — a 
perfect  and  loyal  gentleman,  devoid  of  spirit  and  wit. 

In  Paris,  to  be  known  as  a  wit,  a  man's  wit  must  flow  as 
water  flows  from  a  spring  ;  for  all  men  of  fashion,  and  Paris- 
ians in  general,  are  witty.  But  Calyste  was  too  much  in  love, 
he  was  too  much  absorbed  to  observe  the  change  in  Beatrix, 
and  satisfy  her  by  opening  up  fresh  veins  ;  he  was  very  color- 
less in  the  reflected  light  of  the  previous  evening  and  could 
not  give  the  greedy  Beatrix  the  smallest  excitement.  A  great 
love  is  a  credit  account  open  to  such  voracious  drafts  on  it 
that  the  moment  of  bankruptcy  is  inevitable. 

In  spite  of  the  weariness  of  this  day — the  day  when  a 
woman  is  bored  by  her  lover  ! — Beatrix  shuddered  with  fears 
as  she  thought  of  a  duel  between  la  Palferine,  the  successor 
of  Maxime  de  Trailles,  and  Calyste  du  Guenic,  a  brave  man 
without  brag.  She  therefore  hesitated  to  see  the  young 
Count  any  more ;  but  the  knot  was  cut  by  a  simple  incident. 
Beatrix  had  a  third  share  in  a  box  at  the  Italiens — a  dark  box 
on  the  pit  tier  where  she  might  not  be  seen.  For  some  few  days 
Calyste  had  been  so  bold  as  to  accompany  the  Marquise  and 
sit  behind  her,  timing  their  arrival  late  enough  to  attract  no 
attention.  Beatrix  was  always  one  of  the  first  to  leave  before 
the  end  of  the  last  act,  and  Calyste  escorted  her,  keeping  an 
eye  on  her,  though  old  Antoine  was,  as  usual,  in  waiting  on 
his  mistress. 

Maxime  and  la  Palferine  studied  these  tactics,  dictated  by 
the  proprieties,  by  the  love  of  concealment  characteristic  of 
the  "Eternal  Baby,"  and  also  by  a  dread  that  weighs  on 
every  woman  who,  having  once  been  a  constellation  of  fashion, 
has  fallen  for  love  from  her  rank  in  the  zodiac.  She  then 
fears  humiliation  as  a  worse  agony  than  death ;  but  this  agony 


BE  A  TRIX.  343 

of\pride,  this  shipwreck,  which  women  who  have  kept  their 
place  on  Olympus  inflict  on  those  who  have  fallen,  came  upon 
her,  by  Maxime's  contriving,  under  the  most  horrible  circum- 
stances. 

At  a  performance  of  "Lucia,"  which  ended,  as  is  well 
known,  by  one  of  Rubini's  greatest  triumphs,  Madame  de 
Rochefide,  before  she  was  called  by  Antoine,  came  out  from 
the  corridor  into  the  vestibule  of  the  theatre,  where  the  stairs 
were  crowded  with  pretty  women,  grouped  on  the  steps,  or 
standing  in  knots  till  their  servants  should  bring  up  their 
carriages.  Beatrix  was  at  once  recognized  by  all ;  a  whisper 
ran  through  every  group,  rising  to  a  murmur.  In  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye  every  woman  vanished  ;  the  Marquise  was  left 
alone  as  if  plague-stricken.  Calyste,  seeing  his  wife  on  one 
of  the  staircases,  dared  not  join  the  outcast,  and  it  was  in 
vain  that  Beatrix  twice  gave  him  a  tearful  look,  an  entreaty  to 
come  to  her  support.  At  that  moment  la  Palferine,  elegant, 
lordly,  and  charming,  quitted  two  other  women,  and  came, 
with  a  bow,  to  talk  to  the  Marquise. 

"  Take  my  arm  and  come  defiantly  with  me  ;  I  can  find 
your  carriage,"  said  he. 

"Will  you  finish  the  evening  with  me?"  she  replied,  as 
she  got  into  her  carriage  and  made  room  for  him  by  her  side. 

La  Palferine  said  to  his  groom,  "  Follow  madame's  car- 
riage," and  got  in  with  Madame  de  Rochefide,  to  Calyste's 
amazement.  He  was  left  standing,  planted  on  his  feet  as 
though  they  were  made  of  lead,  for  it  was  on  seeing  him 
looking  pale  and  blank  that  Beatrix  had  invited  the  young 
Count  to  accompany  her.  Every  dove  is  a  Robespierre  in 
white  feathers. 

Three  carriages  arrived  together  at  the  Rue  de  Courcelles 
with  lightning  swiftness — Calyste's,  la  Palferine's,  and  the 
Marquise's. 

"  So  you  are  here  ?  "  said  Beatrix,  on  going  into  her  draw- 
ing-room  leaning  on   the  young  Count's   arm,   and  finding 


344  BEATRIX. 

Calyste   already  there,   his   horse   having   out-distanced  .the 
other  two  carriages. 

"  So  you  are  acquainted  with  this  gentleman  !  "  said  Calyste 
to  Beatrix  with  suppressed  fury. 

"  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  la  Palferine  was  introduced  to  me 
by  Nathan  ten  days  ago,"  said  Beatrix;  "  and  you,  monsieur, 
have  known  me  for  four  years " 

"And  I  am  ready,  madame,"  said  la  Palferine,  "  to  make 
Madame  d'Espard  repent  of  having  been  the  first  to  turn  her 
back  on  you — down  to  her  grandchildren " 

"  Oh,  it  was  she  !  "  cried  Beatrix.      "  I  will  pay  her  out." 

"  If  you  want  to  be  revenged,  you  must  win  back  your 
husband,  but  I  am  prepared  to  bring  him  back  to  you,"  said 
la  Palferine  in  her  ear. 

The  conversation  thus  begun  was  carried  on  until  two  in 
the  morning,  without  giving  Calyste  an  opportunity  of  speak- 
ing two  words  apart  to  Beatrix,  who  constantly  kept  his  rage 
in  subjection  by  her  glances.  La  Palferine,  who  was  not  in 
love  with  her,  was  as  superior  in  good  taste,  wit,  and  charm 
as  Calyste  was  beneath  himself;  writhing  on  his  seat  like  a 
worm  cut  in  two,  and  thrice  starting  to  his  feet  with  an  im- 
pulse to  stop  la  Palferine.  The  third  time  that  Calyste  flew 
at  his  rival,  the  Count  said,  "Are  you  in  pain,  monsieur?" 
in  a  tone  that  made  Calyste  sit  down  on  the  nearest  chair, 
and  remain  as  immovable  as  an  image. 

The  Marquise  chatted  with  the  light  ease  of  a  Celimene, 
ignoring  Calyste's  presence.  La  Palferine  was  so  supremely 
clever  as  to  depart  on  a  last  witty  speech,  leaving  the  two 
lovers  at  war. 

Thus,  by  Maxime's  skill,  the  flames  of  discord  were  raging 
in  the  divided  households  of  Monsieur  and  Madame  de 
Rochefide. 

On  the  morrow,  having  heard  from  la  Palferine,  at  the 
Jockey-Club,  where  the  young  Count  was  playing  whist  with 
great  profit,  of  the  success  of  the  scene  he  had  plotted,  Maxime 


BE  A  TRIX.  345 

went  to  the  Hotel  Schontz  to  ascertain  how  Aurelie  was  man- 
aging her  affairs. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  cried  Madame  Schontz,  laughing  as  she 
saw  him,  "  I  am  at  my  wits'  end.  I  am  closing  my  career 
with  the  discovery  that  it  is  a  misfortune  to  be  clever." 

"Explain  your  meaning. " 

"  In  the  first  place,  my  dear  friend,  I  kept  my  Arthur  for  a 
week  on  a  regimen  of  kicking  his  shins,  with  the  most  patri- 
otic old  stories  and  the  most  unpleasant  discipline  known  in 
our  profession.  'You  are  ill,'  said  he  with  fatherly  mild- 
ness, '  for  I  have  never  been  anything  but  kind  to  you,  and  I 
perfectly  adore  you.'  'You  have  one  fault,  my  dear,'  said  I; 
'you  bore  me.'  'Well,  but  have  you  not  all  the  cleverest 
men  and  the  handsomest  young  fellows  in  Paris  to  amuse 
you  ?  '  said  the  poor  man.  I  was  shut  up.  Then  I  felt  that  I 
loved  him." 

"  Hah  !  "  said  Maxime. 

"  What  is  to  be  done  ?  These  ways  are  too  much  for  us  ;  it 
is  impossible  to  resist  them.  Then  I  changed  the  stop ;  I 
made  eyes  at  that  wild  boar  of  a  lawyer,  my  future  husband, 
as  great  a  sheep  now  as  Arthur  ;  I  made  him  sit  there  in  Roche- 
fide's  armchair,  and  I  thought  him  a  perfect  fool.  How 
bored  I  was  !  But,  of  course,  I  had  to  keep  Fabien  there 
that  we  might  be  discovered  together " 

"  Well,"  cried  Maxime,  "  get  on  with  your  story  !  When 
Rochefide  found  you  together,  what  next?" 

"  You  would  never  guess,  my  good  fellow.  By  your  in- 
structions the  banns  are  published,  the  marriage-contract  is 
being  drawn,  Notre-Dame  de  Lorette  is  out  of  court.  When 
it  is  a  case  of  matrimony,  something  may  be  paid  on  account. 
When  he  found  us  together,  Fabien  and  me,  poor  Arthur  stole 
off  on  tiptoe  to  the  dining-room,  and  began  growling  and 
clearing  his  throat  and  knocking  the  chairs  about.  That 
great  gaby  Fabien,  to  whom  I  cannot  tell  everything,  was 
frightened,  and  that,  my  dear  Maxime,  is  the  point  we  have 


346  BEATRIX. 

reached.  Why,  if  Arthur  should  find  the  couple  of  us  some 
morning  on  coming  into  my  room,  he  is  capable  of  saying, 
'  Have  you  had  a  pleasant  night,  children  ? '  " 

Maxime  nodded  his  head,  and  for  some  minutes  sat  twirling 
his  cane. 

"I  know  the  sort  of  man,"  said  he.  "This  is  what  you 
must  do ;  there-  is  no  help  for  it  but  to  throw  Arthur  out  the 
window  and  keep  the  door  tightly  shut.  You  must  begin 
again  the  same  scene  with  Fabien " 

"  How  intolerable  !  For,  after  all,  you  see,  the  sacrament 
has  not  yet  blessed  me  with  virtue " 

"You  must  contrive  to  catch  Arthur's  eye  when  he  finds 
you  together,"  Maxime  went  on;  "if  he  gets  angry,  there  is 
an  end  of  the  matter.  If  he  only  growls  as  before,  there  is 
yet  more  an  end  of  it." 

"How?" 

"Well,  you  must  be  angry;  you  must  say,  'I  thought  you 
loved  and  valued  me ;  but  you  have  ceased  to  care  for  me ; 

you  feel  no  jealousy '  but  you  know  it  all,  chapter  and 

verse.  '  Under  such  circumstances  Maxime '  (drag  me  in) 
'  would  kill  his  man  on  the  spot '  (and  cry).  '  And  Fabien ' 
(make  him  ashamed  of  himself  by  comparing  him  with  Fabien) 
— *  Fabien  would  have  a  dagger  ready  to  stab  you  to  the  heart. 
That  is  what  I  call  love  !  There,  go  !  Good-night,  good-by  ! 
Take  back  your  house;  I  am  going  to  marry  Fabien.  He 
will  give  me  his  name,  he  will !  He  has  thrown  over  his  old 
mother  !  '     In  short,  you " 

"  Of  course,  of  course!  I  will  be  magnificent!"  cried 
Madame  Schontz.  "  Ah,  Maxime  !  There  will  never  be  but 
one  Maxime,  as  there  never  was  but  one  de  Marsay." 

"La  Palferine  is  greater  than  I,"  said  de  Trailles  modestly. 
"  He  is  getting  on  famously." 

"He  has  a  tongue,  but  you  have  backbone  and  a  grip. 
How  many  people  you  have  kept  going !  How  many  you 
have  doubled  up  !  " 


BE  A  TRIX.  347 

"  La  Palferine  has  every  qualification  ;  he  is  deep  and  well 
informed,  while  I  am  ignorant,"  replied  Maxime.  "I  have 
seen  Rastignac,  who  came  to  terms  at  once  with  the  keeper  of 
the  seals.  Fabien  will  be  made  president  of  the  court  and 
officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  after  a  year's  probation." 

"  I  will  take  up  religion,"  replied  Madame  Schontz,  em- 
phasizing the  phrase  so  as  to  win  an  approving  look  from 
Maxime. 

"  Priests  are  worth  a  hundred  of  us  !  "  said  Maxime. 

"Really?"  said  Aurelie.  "Then  I  may  find  some  one  to 
talk  to  in  a  country  town.  I  have  begun  my  part.  Fabien 
has  already  told  his  mother  that  grace  has  dawned  on  me,  and 
he  has  bewitched  the  good  woman  with  my  million  and  his 
presidency ;  she  agrees  that  we  are  to  live  with  her ;  she  asked 
for  a  portrait  of  me  and  has  sent  me  hers ;  if  Love  were  to 
look  at  it,  he  would  fall  backward.  Go  then,  Maxime;  I 
will  demolish  the  poor  man  this  evening.  It  goes  to  my 
heart." 

Two  days  later  la  Palferine  and  Maxime  met  at  the  door  of 
the  Jockey-Club. 

"It  is  done,"  said  Charles-Edouard. 

The  words,  containing  a  whole  horrible  and  terrible  drama, 
such  as  vengeance  often  carries  out,  made  the  Comte  de 
Trailles  smile. 

"  We  shall  have  all  de  Rochefide's  jeremiads,"  said  Maxime, 
"for  you  and  Aurelie  have  finished  together.  Aurelie  has 
turned  Arthur  out  of  doors,  and  now  we  must  get  hold  of  him. 
He  is  to  give  three  hundred  thousand  francs  to  Madame  du 
Ronceret  and  return  to  his  wife.  We  will  prove  to  him  that 
Beatrix  is  superior  to  Aurelie." 

"We  have  at  least  ten  days  before  us,"  said  Charles- 
Edouard  sapiently,  "and  not  too  much  in  all  conscience; 
for  now  I  know  the  Marquise,  and  the  poor  man  will  be  hand- 
somely fleeced." 


348  BEATRIX. 

"What  will  you  do  when  the  bomb  bursts?"  asked  Max- 
ime  de  Trailles. 

"  We  can  always  be  clever  when  we  have  time  to  think  it 
out ;  I  am  grand  when  I  am  able  to  prepare  for  it." 

The  two  gamblers  went  into  the  drawing-room  together, 
and  found  the  Marquis  de  Rochefide  looking  two  years  older; 
he  had  no  stays  on ;  he  had  sacrificed  his  elegance  ;  his  beard 
had  grown. 

"Well,  my  dear  Marquis?"  said  Maxime. 

"Oh,  my  dear  fellow,  my  life  is  broken "  and  for  ten 

minutes  Arthur  talked  and  Maxime  gravely  listened;  he 
was  thinking  of  his  marriage,  which  was  to  take  place  a  week 
hence. 

"  My  dear  Arthur,  I  advised  you  of  the  only  means  I  knew 
of  to  keep  Aurelie,  and  you  did  not  choose " 

"What  means?" 

"Did  I  not  advise  you  to  go  to  supper  with  Antonia?" 

"  Quite  true.  How  can  I  help  it?  I  love  her.  And  you, 
you  make  love  as  Grisier  fences." 

"Listen  to  me,  Arthur;  give  her  three  hundred  thousand 
francs  for  her  little  house,  and  I  promise  you  I  will  find  you 
something  better.  I  will  speak  to  you  again  of  the  unknown 
fair  one  by-and-by ;  I  see  d'Ajuda,  who  wants  to  say  two 
words  to  me." 

And  Maxime  left  the  inconsolable  man  to  talk  to  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  family  needing  consolation. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  the  other  Marquis  in  an  undertone, 
"the  Duchess  is  in  despair;  Calyste  has  quietly  packed  up 
and  procured  a  passport.  Sabine  wants  to  follow  the  fugi- 
tives, catch  Beatrix,  and  claw  her.  She  is  expecting  another 
child ;  and  the  whole  thing  looks  rather  murderous,  for  she 
has  gone  quite  openly  and  bought  pistols." 

"Tell  the  Duchess  that  Madame  de  Rochefide  is  not  going, 
and  within  a  fortnight  the  whole  thing  will  be  settled.  Now, 
your  hand  on  it,  d'Ajuda.     Neither  you  nor  I  have  said  any- 


BE  A  TRIX.  349 

thing  or  known  anything.  We  shall  admire  the  effects  of 
chance." 

"  The  Duchess  has  already  made  me  swear  secrecy  on  the 
Gospels  and  the  cross." 

"  You  will  receive  my  wife  a  month  hence?  " 

"  With  pleasure." 

"Everybody  will  be  satisfied,"  replied  Maxime.  "Only 
warn  the  Duchess  that  something  is  about  to  happen  which 
will  delay  her  departure  for  Italy  for  six  weeks  ;  it  concerns 
Monsieur  du  Guenic.     You  will  know  all  about  it  later." 

"What  is  it?"  asked  d'Ajuda,  who  was  looking  at  la 
Palferine. 

"  Socrates  said  before  his  death,  '  We  owe  a  cock  to  ^Es- 
culapius.'  But  your  brother-in-law  will  be  let  off  for  the 
comb,"  replied  la  Palferine  without  hesitation. 

For  ten  days  Calyste  endured  the  burden  of  a  woman's 
anger,  all  the  more  implacable  because  it  was  seconded  by  a 
real  passion.  Beatrix  felt  that  form  of  love  so  roughly  but 
truly  described  to  the  Duchess  by  Maxime  de  Trailles.  Per- 
haps there  is  no  highly  organized  being  that  does  not  expe- 
rience this  overwhelming  passion  once  in  a  lifetime.  The 
Marquise  felt  herself  quelled  by  a  superior  force,  by  a  young 
man  who  was  not  impressed  by  her  rank,  who,  being  of  as 
noble  birth  as  herself,  could  look  at  her  with  a  calm  and  pow- 
erful eye,  and  from  whom  her  greatest  feminine  efforts  could 
scarcely  extract  a  smile  of  admiration.  Finally,  she  was 
crushed  by  a  tyrant,  who  always  left  her  bathed  in  tears, 
deeply  hurt,  and  believing  herself  wronged.  Charles-Edouard 
played  the  same  farce  on  Madame  de  Rochefide  that  she  had 
been  playing  these  six  months  on  Calyste. 

Since  the  scene  of  her  mortification  at  the  Italiens,  Beatrix 
had  adhered  to  one  formula — 

"  You  preferred  the  world  and  your  wife  to  me,  so  you  do 
not  love  me.  If  you  wish  to  prove  that  you  do  love  me, 
sacrifice  your  wife   and  the  world.     Give  up  Sabine,   leave 


350  BE  A  TRIX. 

her,  and  let  us  go  to  live  in  Switzerland,  in  Italy,  or  in 
Germany." 

Justifying  herself  by  this  cool  ultimatum,  she  had  estab- 
lished the  sort  of  blockade  which  women  carry  into  effect  by 
cold  looks,  scornful  shrugs,  and  a  face  like  a  stone  citadel. 
She  believed  herself  rid  of  Calyste ;  she  thought  he  would 
never  venture  on  a  breach  with  the  Grandlieus.  To  give  up 
Sabine,  to  whom  Mademoiselle  des  Touches  had  given  hex 
fortune,  meant  poverty  for  him. 

However,  Calyste,  mad  with  despair,  had  secretly  pro- 
cured a  passport,  and  begged  his  mother  to  forward  him  a 
considerable  sum.  While  waiting  for  the  money  to  reach 
him,  he  kept  watch  over  Beatrix,  himself  a  victim  to  the 
jealousy  of  a  Breton.  At  last,  nine  days  after  the  fateful 
communication  made  by  la  Palferine  to  Maxime  at  the  club, 
the  Baron,  to  whom  his  mother  had  sent  thirty  thousand 
francs,  flew  to  the  Rue  de  Courcelles,  determined  to  force  the 
blockade,  to  turn  out  la  Palferine,  and  to  leave  Paris  with  his 
idol  appeased. 

This  was  one  of  those  fearful  alternatives  when  a  woman 
who  has  preserved  a  fragment  of  self-respect  may  sink  for  ever 
into  the  depths  of  vice,  but  may,  on  the  other  hand,  return 
to  virtue.  Hitherto  Madame  de  Rochefide  had  regarded 
herself  as  a  virtuous  woman,  whose  heart  had  been  invaded 
by  two  passions ;  but  to  love  Charles-Edouard,  and  allow  her- 
self to  be  loved  by  Calyste,  would  wreck  her  self-esteem  ;  for 
where  falsehood  begins,  infamy  begins.  She  had  granted 
rights  to  Calyste,  and  no  human  power  could  hinder  the 
Breton  from  throwing  himself  at  her  feet  and  watering  them 
with  the  tears  of  abject  repentance.  Many  persons  wonder  to 
see  the  icy  insensibility  under  which  women  smother  their 
passions ;  but  if  they  could  not  thus  blot  out  the  past,  life 
for  them  would  be  bereft  of  dignity ;  they  could  never  escape 
from  the  inevitable  collusion  to  which  they  had  once  suc- 
cumbed. 


BE  A  TRIX.  351 

In  her  entirely  new  position  Beatrix  would  have  been  saved 
if  la  Palferine  had  come  to  her;  but  old  Antoine's  alertness 
was  her  ruin. 

On  hearing  a  carriage  stop  at  the  door,  she  exclaimed  to 
Calyste,  "Here  are  visitors!"  and  she  hurried  away  to 
prevent  a  castastrophe. 

Antoine,  a  prudent  man,  replied  to  Charles-Edouard,  who 
had  called  solely  to  hear  these  very  words,  "  Madame  is  gone 
out." 

When  Beatrix  heard  from  the  old  servant  that  the  young 
Count  had  called,  and  what  he  had  been  told,  she  said, 
"Quite  right,"  and  returned  to  the  drawing-room,  saying  to 
herself,  "  I  will  be  a  nun  !  " 

Calyste,  who  had  made  so  bold  as  to  open  the  window, 
caught  sight  of  his  rival. 

"  Who  was  it  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  do  not  know ;  Antoine  has  not  come  up  yet." 

"  It  was  la  Palferine " 

"Very  possibly." 

"You  love  him,  and  that  is  why  you  find  fault  with  me. 
I  saw  him  !  " 

"You  saw  him?" 

"I  opened  the  window." 

Beatrix  dropped  half-dead  on  the  sofa.  Then  she  tried  to 
temporize  to  save  the  future ;  she  put  off  their  departure  for 
ten  days  on  the  plea  of  business,  and  vowed  to  herself  that 
she  would  close  her  door  against  Calyste  if  only  she  could 
pacify  la  Palferine,  for  these  are  the  terrible  consequences, 
the  horrible  compromises  and  burning  torments  that  underlie 
lives  that  have  gone  off  the  rails  on  which  the  great  train  of 
society  runs. 

As  soon  as  Beatrix  was  alone  she  felt  so  miserable,  so  deeply 
humiliated,  that  she  went  to  bed;  she  was  ill;  that  fearful 
struggle  that  rent  her  heart  seemed  to  leave  a  horrible  reac- 
tion, and  she  sent  for  the  doctor ;  but  at  the  same  time  she 


352  BEATRIX. 

dispatched  to  la  Palferine  the  following  note,  in  which  she 
avenged  herself  on  Calyste  with  a  sort  of  frenzy : 

"  Come  to  see  me,  my  friend,  I  am  in  desperation.  An- 
toine  turned  you  away  when  your  visit  would  have  put  an  end 
to  one  of  the  most  horrible  nightmares  of  my  life  by  rescuing 
me  from  a  man  I  hate,  whom  I  hope  never  to  see  again.  I 
love  no  one  on  earth  but  you,  and  I  never  shall  love  any  one 
but  you,  though  I  am  so  unhappy  as  not  to  please  you  so  much 
as  I  could  wish " 

She  covered  four  pages,  which,  having  begun  thus,  ended 
in  a  rhapsody,  far  too  poetical  to  be  reproduced  in  print,  in 
which  Beatrix  so  effectually  compromised  herself  that  in  con- 
clusion she  said — 

"Am  I  not  wholly  at  your  mercy?  Ah,  no  price  would  be 
too  great  for  me  to  prove  how  dearly  you  are  loved  !  " 

And  she  signed  her  name,  a  thing  she  had  never  done  for 
either  Calyste  or  Conti. 

On  the  following  day,  when  the  young  Count  called  on  the 
Marquise,  she  was  taking  a  bath.  Antoine  begged  him  to 
wait.  But  he  dismissed  Calyste  in  his  turn,  when,  starving  with 
passion,  he  also  came  early;  and  la  Palferine  could  see  him  as 
he  got  into  his  carriage  again  in  despair. 

"Oh,  Charles,"  said  the  Marquise,  coming  into  the  draw- 
ing-room, "  you  have  ruined  me!" 

"I  know  it,  madame,"  replied  he  coolly.  "You  swore 
that  you  loved  me  alone,  you  offered  to  give  me  a  letter  in 
which  you  will  set  down  the  reasons  you  would  have  had  for 
killing  yourself,  so  that  in  the  event  of  your  being  unfaithful 
to  me  I  might  poison  you  without  fear  of  human  justice — as  if 
superior  souls  needed  to  resort  to  poison  to  avenge  themselves  ! 
You  wrote,  '  No  price  would  be  too  great  for  me  to  prove  how 
dearly  you  are  loved  !  '  Well,  I  find  a  contradiction  between 
these  closing  words  of  your  letter  and  your  speech,  '  You  have 


BEA  TRIX.  353 

ruined  me.'  I  will  know  now  whether  you  have  had  the 
courage  to  break  with  du  Guenic." 

"  You  are  revenged  on  him  beforehand,"  said  she,  throw- 
ing her  arms  round  his  neck.  "And  that  matter  is  enough 
to  bind  you  and  me  for  ever " 

"  Madame,"  said  the  Prince  of  bohemia  coldly,  "  if  you 
desire  my  friendship,  I  consent ;  but  there  are  condi- 
tions  " 

"Conditions?" 

"Yes,  conditions — as  follows:  You  must  be  reconciled  with 
Monsieur  de  Rochefide,  resume  the  honors  of  your  position, 
return  to  your  fine  house  in  the  Rue  d'Anjou — you  will  be  one 
of  the  queens  of  Paris.  You  can  achieve  this  by  making 
Rochefide  play  a  part  in  politics  and  guiding  your  conduct 
with  such  skill  and  tenacity  as  Madame  d'Espard  has  dis- 
played. This  is  the  position  which  any  woman  must  fill  whom 
I  am  to  honor  with  my  devotion " 

"But  you  forget  that  Monsieur  de  Rochefide's  consent  is 
necessary." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  child,"  replied  la  Palferine,  "we  have  pre- 
pared him  for  it.  I  have  pledged  my  honor  as  a  gentleman 
that  you  were  worth  all  the  Schontzes  of  the  Quartier  Saint- 
Georges  put  together,  and  you  owe  it  to  my  honor " 

For  eight  days,  every  day,  Calyste  called  on  Beatrix  and 
was  invariably  sent  away  by  Antoine,  who  put  on  a  grave  face 
and  assured  him,  "  Madame  la  Marquise  is  seriously  ill." 

From  thence  Calyste  rushed  off  to  la  Palferine,  whose  ser- 
vant always  explained,  "  Monsieur  le  Comte  is  gone  hunting." 
And  each  time  Calyste  left  a  letter  for  the  Count. 

At  last,  on  the  ninth  day,  Calyste,  in  reply  to  a  note  from 
la  Palferine  fixing  a  time  for  an  explanation,  found  him  at 
home,  but  with  him  Maxime  de  Trailles,  to  whom  the  younger 
rake  wished,  no  doubt,  to  give  proof  of  his  abilities  by  getting 
him  to  witness  the  scene. 
23 


354  BEATRIX. 

11  Monsieur  le  Baron,"  said  Charles-Edouard  quietly,  "  here 
are  the  six  notes  you  have  done  me  the  honor  of  writing  me. 
They  are  unopened,  just  as  you  sent  them  ;  I  knew  beforehand 
what  might  be  in  them  when  I  heard  that  you  had  been  seek- 
ing me  everywhere  since  the  day  when  I  looked  at  you  out  of 
the  window,  while  you  were  at  the  door  of  a  house  where, 
on  the  previous  day,  I  had  been  at  the  door  while  you  were 
at  the  window.  I  thought  it  best  to  remain  ignorant  of  an 
ill-judged  challenge.  Between  you  and  me,  you  have  too 
much  good  taste  to  owe  a  woman  a  grudge  because  she  has 
ceased  to  love  you.  And  to  fight  your  preferred  rival  is  a 
bad  way  to  reinstate  yourself. 

"Also,  in  the  present  case,  your  letters  were  invalidated, 
null,  and  void,  as  lawyers  say,  in  consequence  of  a  radical 
error  :  you  have  too  much  good  sense  to  quarrel  with  a  hus- 
band for  taking  back  his  wife.  Monsieur  de  Rochefide  feels 
that  the  Marquise's  position  is  undignified.  You  will  no 
longer  find  Madame  de  Rochefide  in  the  Rue  de  Courcelles  ; 
six  months  hence,  next  winter,  you  will  see  her  in  her  hus- 
band's home.  You  very  rashly  thrust  yourself  into  the  midst 
of  a  reconciliation  between  a  married  couple,  to  which  you 
yourself  gave  rise  by  failing  to  shelter  Madame  de  Rochefide 
from  the  mortification  she  endured  at  the  opera-house.  As 
we  left,  Beatrix,  to  whom  I  had  already  brought  some  friendly 
advances  on  her  husband's  part,  took  me  in  her  carriage,  and 
her  first  words  were,  '  Go  and  bring  Arthur  !  '  " 

"Oh,  heavens!"  cried  Calyste,  "she  was  right;  I  had 
failed  in  my  devotion " 

"  But,  unfortunately,  monsieur,  poor  Arthur  was  living  with 
one  of  those  dreadful  women — that  Madame  Schontz,  who  for 
a  long  time  had  expected  every  hour  to  find  herself  deserted. 
Madame  Schontz,  who,  on  the  strength  of  Beatrix's  complex- 
ion, cherished  a  desire  to  see  herself  some  day  the  Marquise 
de  Rochefide,  was  furious  when  she  saw  her  castles  in  the  air 
fallen.     Those  women,  monsieur,  will  lose  an  eye  if  they  can 


BEATRIX.  355 

spoil  two  for  an  enemy ;  la  Schontz,  who  has  just  left  Paris, 
has  been  the  instrument  of  spoiling  six  !  And  if  I  had  been 
so  rash  as  to  love  Beatrix,  the  sum-total  would  have  been 
eight.  You,  monsieur,  must  have  discovered  that  you  need 
an  oculist." 

Maxime  could  not  help  smiling  at  the  change  in  Calyste's 
face;  he  turned  pale  as  his  eyes  were  opened  to  the  situation. 

"  Would  you  believe,  Monsieur  le  Baron,  that  that  wretched 
woman  has  consented  to  marry  the  man  who  furnished  her 
with  means  of  revenge  ?  Oh  !  women  !  You  understand  now 
why  Beatrix  should  shut  herself  up  with  Arthur  for  a  few 
months  at  Nogent-sur-Marne,  where  they  have  a  charming 
little  house  ;  they  will  recover  their  sight  there.  Meanwhile 
their  house  will  be  entirely  redecorated ;  the  Marquise  means 
to  display  a  princely  style  of  splendor.  When  a  man  is  sin- 
cerely in  love  with  so  noble  a  woman,  so  great,  so  exquisite, 
the  victim  of  conjugal  devotion,  as  soon  as  she  has  the  courage 
to  return  to  her  duties  as  a  wife,  the  part  of  those  who  adore 
her  as  you  do,  who  admire  her  as  I  do,  is  to  remain  her  friends 
when  they  can  be  nothing  more. 

"  You  will  forgive  me  for  having  thought  it  well  to  invite 
Monsieur  de  Trailles  to  be  present  at  this  explanation,  but  I 
was  particularly  anxious  to  make  this  all  perfectly  clear.  For 
my  part,  I  especially  wished  to  assure  you  that,  though  I  ad- 
mire Madame  de  Rochefide's  cleverness  as  a  woman,  she  is  to 
me  supremely  odious." 

"  And  that  is  what  our  fairest  dreams,  our  celestial  loves  end 
in  !  "  said  Calyste,  overwhelmed  by  so  many  revelations  and 
disenchantments. 

"  In  a  fish's  tail,"  cried  Maxime,  "  or,  which  is  worse,  in 
an  apothecary's  gallipot  !  I  have  never  known  a  first  love 
that  did  not  end  idiotically.  Ah,  Monsieur  le  Baron,  what- 
ever there  may  be  that  is  heavenly  in  man  finds  its  nourish- 
ment in  heaven  alone  !  This  is  the  excuse  for  us  rakes.  I, 
monsieur,  have  gone  deeply  into  the  question,  and,  as  you  see, 


356  BEATRIX. 

I  am  just  married.  I  shall  be  faithful  to  my  wife,  and  I 
would  urge  you  to  return  to  Madame  du  Guenic — but — three 
months  hence. 

"  Do'  not  regret  Beatrix;  she  is  a  pattern  of  those  vain 
natures,  devoid  of  energy,  but  flirts  out  of  vainglory — a 
Madame  d'Espard  without  political  faculty,  a  woman  devoid 
of  heart  and  brain,  frivolous  in  wickedness.  Madame  de 
Rochefide  loves  no  one  but  Madame  de  Rochefide  ;  she  would 
have  involved  you  in  an  irremediable  quarrel  with  Madame  du 
Guenic,  and  then  have  thrown  you  over  without  a  qualm  ;  in 
fact,  she  is  as  inadequate  for  vice  as  for  virtue." 

"I  do  not  agree  with  you,  Maxime,"  said  la  Palferine  ; 
"  she  will  be  the  most  delightful  mistress  of  a  great  house  in 
all  Paris." 

Calyste  did  not  leave  the  house  without  shaking  hands  with 
Charles-Edouard  and  Maxime  de  Trailles,  thanking  them  for 
having  cured  him  of  his  illusions. 

Three  days  later  the  Duchesse  de  Grandlieu,  who  had  not 
seen  her  daughter  Sabine  since  the  morning  of  the  great  con- 
ference, called  one  morning  and  found  Calyste  in  his  bath- 
room. Sabine  was  sewing  at  some  new  finery  for  her  baby- 
clothes. 

"  Well,  how  are  you  children  getting  on  ?  "  asked  the  kind 
Duchess. 

"  As  well  as  possible,  dear  mamma,"  replied  Sabine,  look- 
ing at  her  mother  with  eyes  bright  with  happiness.  "We 
have  acted  out  the  fable  of  the  Two  Pigeons — that  is  all." 

Calyste  held  out  his  hand  to  his  wife  and  pressed  hers  ten- 
derly. 

1 838-1 844. 


THE  PURSE. 

Translated   by    Clara    Bell. 

To  Sqfka. 

*' 'Have  you  observed,  mademoiselle,  that  the  painters 
and  sculptors  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  they  placed 
two  figures  in  adoration,  one  on  each  side  of  a  fair 
Saint,  never  failed  to  give  them  a  family  likeness  ? 
When  you  here  see  your  name  among  those  that  are 
dear  to  me,  and  under  whose  auspices  I  place  my 
works,  remember  that  touching  harmony,  and  you  will 
see  in  this  not  so  much  an  act  of  homage  as  an  expres- 
sion of  the  brotherly  affection  of  your  devoted  servant, 

"De  Balzac." 

For  souls  to  whom  effusiveness  is  easy  there  is  a  delicious 
hour  that  falls  when  it  is  not  yet  night,  but  is  no  longer  day ; 
the  twilight  gleam  throws  softened  lights  or  tricksy  reflections 
on  every  object,  and  favors  a  dreamy  mood  which  vaguely 
weds  itself  to  the  play  of  light  and  shade.  The  silence  which 
generally  prevails  at  that  time  makes  it  particularly  dear  to 
artists,  who  grow  contemplative,  stand  a  few  paces  back  from 
the  pictures  on  which  they  can  no  longer  work,  and  pass 
judgment  on  them,  rapt  by  the  subject  whose  most  recondite 
meaning  then  flashes  on  the  inner  eye  of  genius.  He  who 
has  never  stood  pensive  by  a  friend's  side  in  such  an  hour  of 
poetic  dreaming  can  hardly  understand  its  inexpressible  sooth- 
ingness.  Favored  by  the  clear-obscure,  the  material  skill 
employed  by  art  to  produce  illusion  entirely  disappears.  If 
the  work  is  a  picture,  the  figures  represented  seem  to  speak 
and  walk ;  the  shade  is  shadow,  the  light  is  day ;  the  flesh 

(357) 


858  THE  PURSE. 

lives,  eyes  move,  blood  flows  in  their  veins,  and  stuffs  have 
a  changing  sheen.  Imagination  helps  the  realism  of  every 
detail,  and  only  sees  the  beauties  of  the  work.  At  that  hour 
illusion  reigns  despotically ;  perhaps  it  awakes  at  nightfall ! 
Is  not  illusion  a  sort  of  night  to  the  mind,  which  we  people 
with  dreams?  Illusion  then  unfolds  its  wings,  it  bears  the 
soul  aloft  to  the  world  of  fancies,  a  world  full  of  voluptuous 
imaginings,  where  the  artist  forgets  the  real  world,  yesterday 
and  the  morrow,  the  future — everything  down  to  its  miseries, 
the  good  and  the  evil  alike. 

At  this  magic  hour  a  young  painter,  a  man  of  talent,  who 
saw  in  art  nothing  but  Art  itself,  was  perched  on  a  step-ladder 
which  helped  him  to  work  at  a  large,  high  painting,  now 
nearly  finished.  Criticising  himself,  honestly  admiring  him- 
self, floating  on  the  current  of  his  thoughts,  he  then  lost 
himself  in  one  of  those  meditative  moods  which  ravish  and 
elevate  the  soul,  soothe  it,  and  comfort  it.  His  reverie  had 
no  doubt  lasted  a  long  time.  Night  fell.  Whether  he  meant 
to  come  down  from  his  perch,  or  whether  he  made  some  ill- 
judged  movement,  believing  himself  to  be  on  the  floor — the 
event  did  not  allow  of  his  remembering  exactly  the  cause  of 
his  accident — he  fell,  his  head  struck  a  footstool,  he  lost  con- 
sciousness and  lay  motionless  during  a  space  of  time  of  which 
he  knew  not  the  length. 

A  sweet  voice  aroused  him  from  the  stunned  condition  into 
which  he  had  sunk.  When  he  opened  his  eyes  the  flash  of  a 
bright  light  made  him  close  them  again  immediately ;  but 
through  the  mist  that  veiled  his  senses  he  heard  the  whisper- 
ing of  two  women,  and  felt  two  young,  two  timid  hands  on 
which  his  head  was  resting.  He  soon  recovered  conscious- 
ness, and  by  the  light  of  an  old-fashioned  argand  lamp  he 
could  make  out  the  most  charming  girl's  face  he  had  ever 
seen,  one  of  those  heads  which  are  often  supposed  to  be  a 
freak  of  the  brush,  but  which  to  him  suddenly  realized  the 
theories  of  the  ideal  beauty  which  every  artist  creates  for  him- 


THE  PURSE.  35$ 

self,  and  whence  his  art  proceeds.  The  features  of  the  un- 
known belonged,  so  to  say,  to  the  refined  and  delicate  type 
of  Prudhon's  school,  but  had  also  the  poetic  sentiment  which 
Girodet  gave  to  the  inventions  of  his  phantasy.  The  fresh- 
ness of  the  temples,  the  regular  arch  of  the  eyebrows,  the 
purity  of  outline,  the  virginal  innocence  so  plainly  stamped 
on  every  feature  of  her  countenance,  made  the  girl  a  perfect 
creature.  Her  figure  was  slight  and  graceful,  and  frail  in 
form.  Her  dress,  though  simple  and  neat,  revealed  neither 
wealth  nor  penury. 

As  he  recovered  his  senses,  the  painter  gave  expression  to 
his  admiration  by  a  look  of  surprise,  and  stammered  some 
confused  thanks.  He  found  a  handkerchief  pressed  to  his 
forehead,  and  above  the  smell  peculiar  to  a  studio,  he 
recognized  the  strong  odor  of  ether,  applied  no  doubt  to 
revive  him  from  his  fainting  fit.  Finally  he  saw  an  old 
woman,  looking  like  a  marquise  of  the  old  school,  who  held 
the  lamp  and  was  advising  the  young  girl. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  younger  woman  in  reply  to  one  of 
the  questions  put  by  the  painter  during  the  few  minutes  when 
he  was  still  under  the  influence  of  the  vagueness  that  the 
shock  had  produced  in  his  ideas,  "  my  mother  and  I  heard 
the  noise  of  your  fall  on  the  floor,  and  we  fancied  we  heard 
a  groan.  The  silence  following  on  the  crash  alarmed  us, 
and  we  hurried  up.  Finding  the  key  in  the  latch,  we  happily 
took  the  liberty  of  entering,  and  we  found  you  lying  motion- 
less on  the  ground.  My  mother  went  to  fetch  what  was 
needed  to  bathe  your  head  and  revive  you.  You  have  cut 
your  forehead — there.     Do  you  feel  it?" 

"  Yes,  I  do  now,"  he  replied. 

"Oh,  it  will  be  nothing,"  said  the  old  mother.  "Hap- 
pily your  head  rested  against  this  lay-figure." 

"I  feel  infinitely  better,"  replied  the  painter.  "I  need 
nothing  further  but  a  hackney  cab  to  take  me  home.  The 
porter's  wife  will  go  for  one." 


360  THE  PURSE. 

He  tried  to  repeat  his  thanks  to  the  two  strangers ;  but  at 
each  sentence  the  elder  lady  interrupted  him,  saying,  "  To- 
morrow, monsieur,  pray  be  careful  to  put  on  leeches  or  to  be 
bled,  and  drink  a  few  cups  of  something  healing.  A  fall  may 
be  dangerous." 

The  young  girl  stole  a  look  at  the  painter  and  at  the 
pictures  in  the  studio.  Her  expression  and  her  glances 
revealed  perfect  propriety ;  her  curiosity  seemed  rather  ab- 
sence of  mind,  and  her  eyes  seemed  to  speak  the  interest 
which  women  feel,  with  the  most  engaging  spontaneity,  in 
everything  which  causes  us  suffering.  The  two  strangers 
seemed  to  forget  the  painter's  works  in  the  painter's  mis- 
hap. When  he  had  reassured  them  as  to  his  condition 
they  left,  looking  at  him  with  an  anxiety  that  was  equally 
free  from  insistence  and  from  familiarity,  without  asking 
any  indiscreet  questions,  or  trying  to  incite  him  to  any 
wish  to  visit  them.  Their  proceedings  all  bore  the  hall- 
mark of  natural  refinement  and  good  taste.  Their  noble 
and  simple  manners  at  first  made  no  great  impression  on 
the  painter,  but  subsequently,  as  he  recalled  all  the  details 
of  the  incident,  he  was  greatly  struck  by  them. 

When  they  reached  the  floor  beneath  that  occupied  as 
the  painter's  studio,  the  old  lady  gently  observed,  "Ade- 
laide, you  left  the  door  open." 

'•'That  was  to  come  to  my  assistance,"  said  the  painter, 
with  a  grateful  smile. 

"You  came  down  just  now,  mother,"  replied  the  young 
girl,  with  a  blush. 

"  Would  you  like  us  to  accompany  you  all  the  way  down 
stairs?"  asked  the  mother.      "The  stairs  are  dark." 

"No,  thank  you,  indeed,  madame;  I  am  much  better." 

"Hold  tightly  by  the  rail."   - 

The  two  women  remained  on  the  landing  to  light  the 
young  man,  listening  to  the  sound  of  his  steps  as  he  de- 
scended the  stairs. 


THE  PURSE.  361 

In  order  to  set  forth  clearly  all  the  exciting  and  unex- 
pected interest  this  scene  might  have  for  the  young  painter, 
it  must  be  told  that  he  had  only  a  few  days  since  estab- 
lished his  studio  in  the  attics  of  this  house,  situated  in  the 
darkest  and,  therefore,  the  most  muddy  part  of  the  Rue  de 
Suresnes,  almost  opposite  the  church  of  the  Madeleine,  and 
quite  close  to  his  rooms  in  the  Rue  des  Champs-Elysees. 
The  fame  his  talent  had  won  him  having  made  him  one  of 
the  artists  most  dear  to  his  country,  he  was  beginning  to 
feel  free  from  want,  and,  to  use  his  own  expression,  was 
enjoying  his  last  privations.  Instead  of  going  to  his  work 
in  one  of  the  studios  near  the  city  gates,  where  the  mod- 
erate rents  had  hitherto  been  in  proportion  to  his  humble 
earnings,  he  had  gratified  a  wish  that  was  new  every  morning, 
by  sparing  himself  a  long  walk,  and  the  loss  of  much  time, 
now  more  valuable  than  ever. 

No  man  in  the  world  would  have  inspired  feelings  of  a 
greater  interest  than  Hippolyte  Schinner  if  he  would  ever 
have  consented  to  make  acquaintance ;  but  he  did  not  lightly 
intrust  to  others  the  secrets  of  his  life.  He  was  the  idol 
of  a  necessitous  mother,  who  had  brought  him  up  at  the 
cost  of  the  severest  privations.  Mademoiselle  Schinner,  the 
daughter  of  an  Alsatian  farmer,  had  never  been  married.  Her 
tender  soul  had  been  cruelly  crushed,  long  ago,  by  a  rich 
man,  who  did  not  pride  himself  on  any  great  delicacy  in  his 
love  affairs.  The  day  when,  as  a  young  girl,  in  all  the  radi- 
ance of  her  beauty  and  all  the  triumph  of  her  life,  she  suffered, 
at  the  cost  of  her  heart  and  her  sweet  illusions,  the  disen- 
chantment which  falls  on  us  so  slowly  and  yet  so  quickly — 
for  we  try  to  postpone  as  long  as  possible  our  belief  in  evil, 
and  it  seems  to  come  too  soon — that  day  was  a  whole  age  of 
reflection,  and  it  was  also  a  day  of  religious  thought  and 
resignation.  She  refused  the  alms  of  the  man  who  had  be- 
trayed her,  renounced  the  world,  and  made  a  glory  of  her 
shame.     She  gave  herself  up  entirely  to  her  motherly  love, 


362  THE  PURSE. 

seeking  in  it  all  her  joys  in  exchange  for  the  social  pleasures 
to  which  she  bid  farewell.  She  lived  by  work,  saving  up  a 
treasure  in  her  son.  And,  in  after  years,  a  day,  an  hour, 
repaid  her  amply  for  the  long  and  weary  sacrifices  of  her 
indigence. 

At  the  last  exhibition  her  son  had  received  the  Cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor.  The  newspapers,  unanimous  in  hailing  an 
unknown  genius,  still  rang  with  sincere  praises.  Artists 
themselves  acknowledged  Schinner  as  a  master,  and  dealers 
covered  his  canvasses  with  gold-pieces.  At  five-and-twenty 
Hippolyte  Schinner,  to  whom  his  mother  had  transmitted  her 
woman's  soul,  understood  more  clearly  than  ever  his  position 
in  the  world.  Anxious  to  restore  to  his  mother  the  pleasures 
of  which  society  had  so  long  robbed  her,  he  lived  for  her, 
hoping  by  the  aid  of  fame  and  fortune  to  see  her  one  day 
happy,  rich,  respected,  and  surrounded  by  men  of  mark. 
Schinner  had  therefore  chosen  his  friends  among  the  most 
honorable  and  distinguished  men.  Fastidious  in  the  selection 
of  his  intimates,  he  desired  to  raise  still  further  a  position 
which  his  talent  had  placed  high.  The  work  to  which  he  had 
devoted  himself  from  boyhood,  by  compelling  him  to  dwell 
in  solitude — the  mother  of  great  thoughts — had  left  him  the 
beautiful  beliefs  which  grace  the  early  days  of  life.  His 
adolescent  soul  was  not  closed  to  any  of  the  thousand  bashful 
emotions  by  which  a  young  man  is  a  being  apart,  whose  heart 
abounds  in  joys,  in  poetry,  in  virginal  hopes,  puerile  in  the 
eyes  of  men  of  the  world,  but  deep  because  they  are  single- 
hearted. 

He  was  endowed  with  the  gentle  and  polite  manners  which 
speak  to  the  soul,  and  fascinate  even  those  who  do  not  under- 
stand them.  He  was  well-made.  His  voice,  coming  from 
his  heart,  stirred  that  of  others  to  noble  sentiments,  and  bore 
witness  to  his  true  modesty  by  a  certain  ingenuousness  of 
tone.  Those  who  saw  him  felt  drawn  to  him  by  that  attrac- 
tion of  the  moral  nature  which  men  of  science  are  happily 


THE  PURSE.  363 

unable  to  analyze ;  they  would  detect  in  it  some  phenomenon 
of  galvanism,  or  the  current  of  I  know  not  what  fluid,  and 
express  our  sentiments  in  a  formula  of  ratios  of  oxygen  and 
electricity. 

These  details  will  perhaps  explain  to  strong-minded  persons 
and  to  men  of  fashion  why,  in  the  absence  of  the  porter  whom 
he  had  sent  to  the  end  of  the  Rue  de  la  Madeleine  to  call  him 
a  coach,  Hippolyte  Schinner  did  not  ask  the  man's  wife  any 
questions  concerning  the  two  women  whose  kindness  of  heart 
had  shown  itself  in  his  behalf.  But  though  he  replied  Yes  or 
No  to  the  inquiries,  natural  under  the  circumstances,  which 
the  good  woman  made  as  to  his  accident,  and  the  friendly 
intervention  of  the  tenants  occupying  the  fourth  floor,  he 
could  not  hinder  her  from  following  the  instinct  of  her 
kind;  she  mentioned  the  two  strangers,  speaking  of  them  as 
prompted  by  the  interests  of  her  policy  and  the  subterranean 
opinions  of  the  porter's  lodge. 

"Ah,"  said  she,  "they  were,  no  doubt,  Mademoiselle 
Leseigneur  and  her  mother,  who  have  lived  here  these  four 
years.  We  do  not  yet  know  exactly  what  these  ladies  do ; 
in  the  morning,  only  till  the  hour  of  noon,  an  old  woman  who 
is  half  deaf,  and  who  never  speaks  any  more  than  a  wall,  comes 
in  to  help  them ;  in  the  evening,  two  or  three  old  gentlemen, 
with  loops  of  ribbon,  like  you,  monsieur,  come  to  see  them, 
and  often  stay  very  late.  One  of  them  comes  in  a  carriage 
with  servants,  and  is  said  to  have  sixty  thousand  francs  a  year. 
However,  they  are  very  quiet  tenants,  as  you  are,  monsieur; 
and  economical!  they  live  on  nothing,  and  as  soon  as  a  letter 
is  brought  they  pay  for  it.  It  is  a  queer  thing,  monsieur,  the 
mother's  name  is  not  the  same  as  the  daughter's.  Ah,  but 
when  they  go  for  a  walk  in  the  Tuileries,  mademoiselle  is  very 
smart,  and  she  never  goes  out  but  she  is  followed  by  a  lot  of 
young  men  ;  but  she  shuts  the  door  in  their  faces,  and  she  is 
quite  right.     The  proprietor  would  never  allow " 

The  coach  having  come,  Hippolyte  heard  no  more,  and 


364  THE  PURSE. 

went  home.  His  mother,  to  whom  he  related  his  adventure, 
dressed  his  wound  afresh,  and  would  not  allow  him  to  go  to 
the  studio  next  day.  After  taking  advice,  various  treatments 
were  prescribed,  and  Hippolyte  remained  at  home  three  days. 
During  this  retirement  his  idle  fancy  recalled  vividly,  bit  by 
bit,  the  details  of  the  scene  that  had  ensued  on  his  fainting  fit. 
The  young  girl's  profile  was  clearly  projected  against  the  dark- 
ness of  his  inward  vision ;  he  saw  once  more  the  mother's 
faded  features,  or  he  felt  the  touch  of  Adelaide's  hands.  He 
remembered  some  gesture  which  at  first  had  not  greatly  struck 
him,  but  whose  exquisite  grace  was  thrown  into  relief  by 
memory ;  then  an  attitude,  or  the  tones  of  a  melodious  voice, 
enhanced  by  the  distance  of  remembrance,  suddenly  rose  be- 
fore him,  as  objects  plunging  to  the  bottom  of  deep  waters 
come  back  to  the  surface. 

So,  on  the  day  when  he  could  resume  work,  he  went  early 
to  his  studio ;  but  the  visit  he  undoubtedly  had  a  right  to  pay 
to  his  neighbors  was  the  true  cause  of  his  haste ;  he  had  already 
forgotten  the  pictures  he  had  begun.  At  the  moment  when  a 
passion  throws  off  its  swaddling  clothes,  inexplicable  pleasures 
are  felt,  known  to  those  who  have  loved.  So  some  readers 
will  understand  why  the  painter  mounted  the  stairs  to  the 
fourth  floor  but  slowly,  and  will  be  in  the  secret  of  the  throbs 
that  followed  each  other  so  rapidly  in  his  heart  at  the  moment 
when  he  saw  the  humble  brown  door  of  the  rooms  inhabited  by 
Mademoiselle  Leseigneur.  This  girl,  whose  name  was  not  the 
same  as  her  mother's,  had  aroused  the  young  painter's  deepest 
sympathies ;  he  chose  to  fancy  some  similarity  between  him- 
self and  her  as  to  their  position,  and  attributed  to  her  misfor- 
tunes of  birth  akin  to  his  own.  All  the  time  he  worked  Hip- 
polyte gave  himself  very  willingly  to  thoughts  of  love,  and 
made  a  great  deal  of  noise  to  compel  the  two  ladies  to  think 
of  him  as  he  was  thinking  of  them.  He  stayed  late  at  the 
studio  and  dined  there;  then,  at  about  seven  o'clock,  he  went 
down  to  call  on  his  neighbors. 


THE  PURSE.  365 

No  painter  of  manners  has  ventured  to  initiate  us — perhaps 
out  of  modesty — into  the  really  curious  privacy  of  certain 
Parisian  existences,  into  the  secret  of  the  dwellings  whence 
emerge  such  fresh  and  elegant  toilets,  such  brilliant  women, 
who,  rich  on  the  surface,  allow  the  signs  of  very  doubtful 
comfort  to  peep  out  in  every  part  of  their  home.  If,  here,  the 
picture  is  too  boldly  drawn,  if  you  find  it  tedious  in  places,  do 
not  blame  the  description,  which  is,  indeed,  part  and  parcel 
of  my  story  ;  for  the  appearance  of  the  rooms  inhabited  by  his 
two  neighbors  had  a  great  influence  on  the  feelings  and  hopes 
of  Hippolyte  Schinner. 

The  house  belonged  to  one  of  those  proprietors  in  whom 
there  is  a  foregone  and  profound  horror  of  repairs  and  decora- 
tion, one  of  the  men  who  regard  their  position  as  Paris  house- 
owners  as  a  business.  In  the  vast  chain  of  moral  species, 
these  people  hold  a  middle  place  between  the  miser  and  the 
usurer.  Optimists  in  their  own  interests,  they  are  all  faithful 
to  the  Austrian  status  quo.  If  you  speak  of  moving  a  cup- 
board or  a  door,  of  opening  the  most  indispensable  air-hole, 
their  eyes  flash,  their  bile  rises,  they  rear  like  a  frightened 
horse.  When  the  wind  blows  down  a  few  chimney-pots  they 
are  quite  ill,  and  deprive  themselves  of  an  evening  at  the 
Gymnase  or  the  Porte-Saint-Martin  Theatre,  "on  account  of 
repairs."  Hippolyte,  who  had  seen  the  performance  gratis 
of  a  comical  scene  with  Monsieur  Molineux,  as  concerning 
certain  decorative  repairs  in  his  studio,  was  not  surprised  to 
see  the  dark,  greasy  paint,  the  oily  stains,  spots,  and  other 
disagreeable  accessories  that  varied  the  woodwork.  And 
these  stigmata  of  poverty  are  not  altogether  devoid  of  poetry 
in  an  artist's  eyes. 

Mademoiselle  Leseigneur  herself  opened  the  door.  On 
recognizing  the  young  artist  she  bowed,  and  at  the  same  time, 
with  Parisian  adroitness  and  with  the  presence  of  mind  that 
pride  can  lend,  turned  round  to  shut  a  door  in  a  glass  par- 
tition through  which  Hippolyte  might  have  caught  sight  of 

Z 


366  THE  PURSE. 

some  linen  hung  by  lines  over  patent  ironing  stoves,  an  old 
camp-bed,  some  wood-embers,  charcoal,  irons,  a  filter,  the 
household  crockery,  and  all  the  utensils  familiar  to  a  small 
household.  India-muslin  curtains,  fairly  white,  carefully 
screened  this  lumber-room — a  capharnaum,  as  the  French 
call  such  a  domestic  laboratory — which  was  lighted  by  win- 
dows looking  out  on  a  neighboring  yard. 

Hippolyte,  with  the  quick  eye  of  an  artist,  saw  the  uses, 
the  furniture,  the  general  effect  and  condition  of  this  first 
room,  thus  cut  in  half.  The  more  honorable  half,  which 
served  both  as  anteroom  and  dining-room,  was  hung  with  an 
old  salmon-rose-colored  paper,  with  a  flock  border,  the  manu- 
facture of  Reveillon,  no  doubt ;  the  holes  and  spots  had  been 
carefully  touched  over  with  wafers.  Prints  representing  the 
battles  of  Alexander,  by  Lebrun,  in  frames  with  the  gilding 
rubbed  off,  were  symmetrically  arranged  on  the  walls.  In 
the  middle  stood  a  massive  mahogany  table,  old-fashioned  in 
shape,  and  worn  at  the  edges.  A  small  stove,  whose  thin 
straight  pipe  was  scarcely  visible,  stood  in  front  of  the 
chimney-place,  but  the  hearth  was  occupied  by  a  cupboard. 
By  a  strange  contrast  the  chairs  showed  some  remains  of 
former  splendor ;  they  were  of  carved  mahogany,  but  the  red 
morocco  seats,  the  gilt  nails  and  reeded  backs,  showed  as 
many  scars  as  an  old  sergeant  of  the  Imperial  Guard. 

This  room  did  duty  as  a  museum  of  certain  objects,  such 
as  are  never  seen  but  in  this  kind  of  amphibious  household ; 
nameless  objects  with  the  stamp  at  once  of  luxury  and  penury. 
Among  other  curiosities  Hippolyte  noticed  a  splendidly 
finished  telescope,  hanging  over  the  small  discolored  glass 
that  decorated  the  chimney.  To  harmonize  with  this  strange 
collection  of  furniture  there  was,  between  the  chimney  and 
the  partition,  a  wretched  sideboard  of  painted  wood,  pre- 
tending to  be  mahogany,  of  all  woods  the  most  impossible  to 
imitate.  But  the  slippery  red  quarries,  the  shabby  little  rugs 
in  front  of  the  chairs,  and  all  the  furniture  shone  with  the 


THE  PURSE.  367 

hard-rubbing  cleanliness  which  lends  a  treacherous  lustre  to 
old  things  by  making  their  defects,  their  age,  and  their  long 
service  still  more  conspicuous.  An  indescribable  odor  per- 
vaded the  room,  a  mingled  smell  of  the  exhalations  from  the 
lumber-room  and  the  vapors  of  the  dining-room,  with  those 
from  the  stairs,  though  the  window  was  partly  open.  The  air 
from  the  street  fluttered  the  dusty  curtains,  which  were  care- 
fully drawn  so  as  to  hide  the  window-bay,  where  former 
tenants  had  testified  to  their  presence  by  various  ornamental 
additions — a  sort  of  domestic  fresco. 

Adelaide  hastened  to  open  the  door  of  the  inner  room, 
where  she  announced  the  painter  with  evident  pleasure.  Hip- 
polyte,  who,  of  yore,  had  seen  the  same  signs  of  poverty  in  his 
mother's  home,  noted  them  with  the  singular  vividness  of  im- 
pression which  characterizes  the  earliest  acquisitions  of  memory, 
and  entered  into  the  details  of  this  existence  better  than  any 
one  else  would  have  done.  As  he  recognized  the  facts  of  his 
life  as  a  child,  the  kind  young  fellow  felt  neither  scorn  for 
disguised  misfortune  nor  pride  in  the  luxury  he  had  lately 
conquered  for  his  mother. 

"  Well,  monsieur,  I  hope  you  no  longer  feel  the  effects  of 
your  fall,"  said  the  old  lady,  rising  from  an  antique  armchair 
that  stood  by  the  chimney,  and  offering  him  a  seat. 

"No,  madame.  I  have  come  to  thank  you  for  the  kind 
care  you  gave  me,  and  above  all  mademoiselle,  who  heard  me 
fall." 

As  he  uttered  this  speech,  stamped  with  the  exquisite  stu- 
pidity given  to  the  mind  by  the  first  disturbing  symptoms  of 
true  love,  Hippolyte  looked  at  the  young  girl.  Adelaide  was 
lighting  the  argand  lamp,  no  doubt,  that  she  might  get  rid  of 
a  tallow  candle  fixed  in  a  large,  fiat,  copper  candlestick,  and 
graced  with  a  heavy  fluting  of  grease  from  its  guttering.  She 
answered  with  a  slight  bow,  carried  the  flat  candlestick  into 
the  anteroom,  came  back,  and,  after  placing  the  lamp  on  the 
mantel,  seated   herself  by  her  mother,   a   little   behind  the 


368  THE  PURSE. 

painter,  so  as  to  be  able  to  look  at  him  at  her  ease,  while 
apparently  much  interested  in  the  burning  of  the  lamp ;  the 
flame,  checked  by  the  damp  in  a  dingy  chimney,  sputtered  as 
it  struggled  with  a  charred  and  badly  trimmed  wick.  Hip- 
polyte,  seeing  the  large  mirror  that  decorated  the  mantel, 
immediately  fixed  his  eyes  on  it  to  admire  Adelaide.  Thus 
the  girl's  little  stratagem  only  served  to  embarrass  them  both. 

While  talking  with  Madame  Leseigneur,  for  Hippolyte, 
called  her  so,  on  the  chance  of  being  right,  he  examined  the 
room,  but  unobtrusively  and  by  stealth. 

The  Egyptian  figures  on  the  iron  fire-dogs  were  scarcely 
visible,  the  hearth  was  so  heaped  with  cinders ;  two  brands 
tried  to  meet  in  front  of  a  sham  log  of  firebrick,  as  care- 
fully buried  as  a  miser's  treasure  could  ever  be.  An  old 
Aubusson  carpet,  very  much  faded,  very  much  mended,  and 
as  worn  as  a  pensioner's  coat,  did  not  cover  the  whole  of 
the  tiled  floor,  and  the  cold  struck  to  his  feet.  The  walls 
were  hung  with  a  reddish  paper,  imitating  figured  silk  with  a 
yellow  pattern.  In  the  middle  of  the  wall  opposite  the 
windows  the  painter  saw  a  crack,  and  the  outline  marked  on 
the  paper  of  double-doors,  shutting  off  a  recess  where  Madame 
Leseigneur  slept  no  doubt,  a  fact  ill  disguised  by  a  sofa  in  front 
of  the  door.  Facing  the  chimney,  above  a  mahogany  chest 
of  drawers  of  handsome  and  tasteful  design,  was  the  portrait 
of  an  officer  of  rank,  which  the  dim  light  did  not  allow  him 
to  see  well ;  but  from  what  he  could  make  out  he  thought 
that  the  fearful  daub  must  have  been  painted  in  China.  The 
window-curtains  of  red  silk  were  as  much  faded  as  the  furni- 
ture, in  red  and  yellow  worsted  work,  if  this  room  "con- 
trived a  double  debt  to  pay."  On  the  marble  top  of  the 
chest  of  drawers  was  a  costly  malachite  tray,  with  a  dozen 
coffee  cups  magnificently  painted,  and  made,  no  doubt,  at 
Sevres.  On  the  chimney-shelf  stood  the  omnipresent  Empire 
clock:  a  warrior  driving  the  four  horses  of  a  chariot,  whose 
wheel  bore  the  numbers  of  the   hours   on  its  spokes.     The 


THE   PURSE.  369 

tapers  in  the  tall  candlesticks  were  yellow  with  smoke,  and 
at  each  corner  of  the  shelf  stood  a  porcelain  vase  crowned 
with  artificial  flowers  full  of  dust  and  stuck  into  moss. 

In  the  middle  of  the  room  Hippoiyte  remarked  a  card-table 
ready  for  play,  with  new  packs  of  cards.  For  an  observer 
there  was  something  heartrending  in  the  sight  of  this  misery 
painted  up  like  an  old  woman  who  wants  to  falsify  her  face. 
At  such  a  sight  every  man  of  sense  must  at  once  have  stated 
to  himself  this  obvious  dilemma — either  these  two  women  are 
honesty  itself,  or  they  live  by  intrigue  and  gambling.  But 
on  looking  at  Adelaide,  a  man  so  pure-minded  as  Schinner 
could  not  but  believe  in  her  perfect  innocence,  and  ascribe 
the  incoherence  of  the  furniture  to  honorable  causes. 

"My  dear,"  said  the  old  lady  to  the  young  one,  "  I  am 
cold  ;  make  a  little  fire,  and  give  me  my  shawl." 

Adelaide  went  into  a  room  next  the  drawing-room,  where 
she  no  doubt  slept,  and  returned  bringing  her  mother  a  cash- 
mere shawl,  which  when  new  must  have  been  very  costly ; 
the  pattern  was  Indian  ;  but  it  was  old,  faded,  and  full  of 
darns,  and  matched  the  furniture.  Madame  Leseigneur 
wrapped  herself  in  it  very  artistically,  and  with  the  readiness 
of  an  old  woman  who  wishes  to  make  her  words  seem  truth. 
The  young  girl  ran  lightly  off  to  the  lumber-room  and  reap- 
peared with  a  bundle  of  small  wood,  which  she  gallantly  threw 
on  the  fire  to  revive  it. 

It  would  be  rather  difficult  to  reproduce  the  conversation 
which  followed  among  these  three  persons.  Hippoiyte,  guided 
by  the  tact  which  is  almost  always  the  outcome  of  misfortune 
suffered  in  early  youth,  dared  not  allow  himself  to  make  the 
least  remark  as  to  his  neighbors'  situation,  as  he  saw  all  about 
him  the  signs  of  ill-disguised  poverty.  The  simplest  question 
would  have  been  an  indiscretion,  and  could  only  be  ventured 
on  by  old  friendship.  The  painter  was  nevertheless  absorbed 
in  the  thought  of  this  concealed  penury,  it  pained  his  generous 
soul ;  but  knowing  how  offensive  every  kind  of  pity  may  be, 
24 


370  THE  PURSE. 

even  the  friendliest,  the  disparity  between  his  thoughts  and 
his  words  made  him  feel  uncomfortable. 

The  two  ladies  at  first  talked  of  painting,  for  women  easily 
guess  the  secret  embarrassment  of  a  first  call ;  they  themselves 
feel  it,  perhaps,  and  the  nature  of  their  minds  supplies  them 
with  a  thousand  devices  to  put  an  end  to  it.  By  questioning 
the  young  man  as  to  the  material  exercise  of  his  art,  and  as 
to  his  studies,  Adelaide  and  her  mother  emboldened  him  to 
talk.  The  indefinable  nothings  of  their  chat,  animated  by 
kindly  feeling,  naturally  led  Hippolyte  to  flash  forth  remarks 
or  reflections  which  showed  the  character  of  his  habits  and  of 
his  mind.  Trouble  had  prematurely  faded  the  old  lady's  face, 
formerly  handsome,  no  doubt ;  nothing  was  left  but  the  more 
prominent  features,  the  outline ;  in  a  word,  the  skeleton  of  a 
countenance  of  which  the  whole  effect  indicated  great  shrewd- 
ness with  much  grace  in  the  play  of  the  eyes,  in  which  could 
be  discerned  the  expression  peculiar  to  women  of  the  old 
Court ;  an  expression  that  cannot  be  defined  in  words.  Those 
fine  and  mobile  features  might  quite  as  well  indicate  bad  feel- 
ings, and  suggest  astuteness  and  womanly  artifice  carried  to  a 
high  pitch  of  wickedness,  as  reveal  the  refined  delicacy  of 
a  beautiful  soul. 

Indeed,  the  face  of  a  woman  has  this  element  of  mystery 
to  puzzle  the  ordinary  observer,  that  the  difference  between 
frankness  and  duplicity,  the  genius  for  intrigue  and  the  genius 
of  the  heart,  is  there  inscrutable.  A  man  gifted  with  a  pene- 
trating eye  can  read  the  intangible  shade  of  difference  pro- 
duced by  a  more  or  less  curved  line,  a  more  or  less  deep 
dimple,  a  more  or  less  prominent  feature.  The  appreciation 
of  these  indications  lies  entirely  in  the  domain  of  intuition ; 
this  alone  can  lead  to  the  discovery  of  what  every  one  is 
interested  in  concealing.  This  old  lady's  face  was  like  the 
room  she  inhabited  ;  it  seemed  as  difficult  to  detect  whether 
this  squalor  covered  vice  or  the  highest  virtue,  as  to  decide 
whether  Adelaide's  mother  was  an  old  coquette  accustomed 


THE  PURSE.  371 

to  weigh,  to  calculate,  to  sell  everything,  or  a  loving  woman, 
full  of  noble  feeling  and  amiable  qualities.  But  at  Schinner's 
age  the  first  impulse  of  the  heart  is  to  believe  in  goodness. 
And,  indeed,  as  he  studied  Adelaide's  noble  and  almost 
haughty  brow,  as  he  looked  into  her  eyes  full  of  soul  and 
thought,  he  breathed,  so  to  speak,  the  sweet  and  modest  fra- 
grance of  virtue.  In  the  course  of  the  conversation  he  seized 
an  opportunity  of  discussing  portraits  in  general,  to  give  him- 
self a  pretext  for  examining  the  frightful  pastel,  of  which  the 
color  had  flown,  and  the  chalk  in  many  places  fallen  away. 

"  You  are  attached  to  that  picture  for  the  sake  of  the  like- 
ness, no  doubt,  mesdames,  for  the  drawing  is  dreadful?"  he 
said,  looking  at  Adelaide. 

"It  was  done  at  Calcutta,  in  great  haste,"  replied  the 
mother,  in  an  agitated  voice. 

She  gazed  at  the  formless  sketch  with  the  deep  absorption 
which  memories  of  happiness  produce  when  they  are  roused 
and  fall  on  the  heart  like  a  beneficent  dew  to  whose  refreshing 
touch  we  love  to  yield  ourselves ;  but  in  the  expression  of 
the  old  lady's  face  there  were  traces,  too,  of  perennial  regret. 
At  least,  it  was  thus  that  the  painter  chose  to  interpret  her 
attitude  and  countenance,  and  he  presently  sat  down  again  by 
her  side. 

"Madame,"  he  said,  "in  a  very  short  time  the  colors  of 
that  pastel  will  have  disappeared.  The  portrait  will  only  sur- 
vive in  your  memory.  Where  you  will  still  see  the  face  that 
is  dear  to  you,  others  will  see  nothing  at  all.  Will  you  allow 
me  to  reproduce  the  likeness  on  canvas?  It  will  be  more  per- 
manently recorded  then  than  on  that  sheet  of  paper.  Grant 
me,  I  beg,  as  a  neighborly  favor,  the  pleasure  of  doing  you 
this  service.  There  are  times  when  an  artist  is  glad  of  a 
respite  from  his  greater  undertakings  by  doing  work  of  less 
lofty  pretensions,  so  it  will  be  a  recreation  for  me  to  paint 
that  head." 

The  old  lady  flushed  as  she  heard  the  painter's  words,  and 


372  THE  PURSE. 

Adelaide  shot  one  of  those  glances  of  deep  feeling  which  seem 
to  flash  from  the  soul.  Hippolyte  wanted  to  feel  some  tie 
linking  him  with  his  two  neighbors,  to  conquer  a  right  to 
mingle  in  their  life.  His  offer,  appealing  as  it  did  to  the  live- 
liest affections  of  the  heart,  was  the  only  one  he  could  possibly 
make ;  it  gratified  his  pride  as  an  artist  and  could  not  hurt  the 
feelings  of  the  ladies.  Madame  Leseigneur  accepted,  without 
eagerness  or  reluctance,  but  with  the  self-possession  of  a  noble 
soul,  fully  aware  of  the  character  of  bonds  formed  by  such  an 
obligation,  while,  at  the  same  time,  they  are  its  highest  glory 
as  a  proof  of  esteem. 

"  I  fancy,"  said  the  painter,  "  that  the  uniform  is  that  of  a 
naval  officer  ?  ' ' 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "that  of  a  captain  in  command  of  a 
vessel.  Monsieur  de  Rouville — my  husband — died  at  Batavia 
in  consequence  of  a  wound  received  in  a  fight  with  an  English 
ship  they  fell  in  with  off  the  Asiatic  coast.  He  commanded  a 
frigate  of  fifty-six  guns,  and  the  Revenge  carried  ninety-six. 
The  struggle  was  very  unequal,  but  he  defended  his  ship  so 
bravely  that  he  held  out  till  nightfall  and  got  away.  When  I 
came  back  to  France  Bonaparte  was  not  yet  in  power,  and  I 
was  refused  a  pension.  When  I  applied  again  for  it,  quite 
lately,  I  was  sternly  informed  that  if  the  Baron  de  Rouville 
had  emigrated  I  should  not  have  lost  him  ;  that  by  this  time 
he  would  have  been  rear-admiral ;  finally,  his  excellency 
quoted  I  know  not  what  decree  of  forfeiture.  I  took  this  step, 
to  which  I  was  urged  by  my  friends,  only  for  the  sake  of  my 
poor  Adelaide.  I  have  always  hated  the  idea  of  holding  out 
my  hand'as  a  beggar  in  the  name  of  a  grief  which  deprives  a 
woman  of  voice  and  strength.  I  do  not  like  this  money  valu- 
ation for  blood  irreparably  spilt " 

"  Dear  mother,  this  subject  always  does  you  harm,"  said 
her  daughter. 

In  response  to  this  remark  from  Adelaide,  the  Baronne 
Leseigneur  bowed,  and  was  silent. 


THE  PURSE.  373 


41 


Monsieur,"  said  the  young  girl  to  Hippolyte,  "I  had 
supposed  that  a  painter's  work  was  generally  fairly  quiet?  " 

At  this  question  Schinner  colored,  remembering  the  noise 
he  had  made.  Adelaide  said  no  more,  and  spared  him  a 
falsehood  by  rising  at  the  sound  of  a  carriage  stopping  at  the 
door.  She  went  into  her  own  room,  and  returned  carrying  a 
pair  of  tall,  gilt  candlesticks  with  partly  burnt  wax-candles, 
which  she  quickly  lighted,  and,  without  waiting  for  the  bell  to 
ring,  she  opened  the  door  of  the  outer  room,  where  she  set 
the  lamp  down.  The  sound  of  a  kiss  given  and  received 
found  an  echo  in  Hippolyte's  heart.  The  young  man's  im- 
patience to  see  the  man  who  treated  Adelaide  with  so  much 
familiarity  was  not  immediately  gratified  ;  the  new-comers 
had  a  conversation,  which  he  thought  very  long,  in  an  under- 
tone, with  the  young  girl. 

At  last  Mademoiselle  de  Rouville  returned,  followed  by 
two  men,  whose  costume,  countenance,  and  appearance  are  a 
long  story. 

The  first,  a  man  of  about  sixty,  wore  one  of  the  coats  in- 
vented, I  believe,  for  Louis  XVIII.,  then  on  the  throne,  in 
which  the  most  difficult  problem  of  the  sartorial  art  had  been 
solved  by  a  tailor  who  ought  to  be  immortal.  That  artist 
certainly  understood  the  art  of  compromise,  which  was  the 
moving  genius  of  that  period  of  shifting  politics.  Is  it  not  a 
rare  merit  to  be  able  to  take  the  measure  of  the  time?  This 
coat,  which  the  young  men  of  the  present  day  may  conceive 
to  be  fabulous,  was  neither  civil  nor  military,  and  might  pass 
for  civil  or  military  by  turns.  Fleurs-de-lis  (lily  flowers)  were 
embroidered  on  the  lapels  of  the  back  skirts.  The  gilt  but- 
tons also  bore  fleurs-de-lis ;  on  the  shoulders  a  pair  of  straps 
cried  out  for  useless  epaulettes;  these  military  appendages 
were  there  like  a  petition  without  a  recommendation.  This 
old  gentleman's  coat  was  of  dark  blue  cloth,  and  the  button- 
hole had  blossomed  into  many  colored  ribbons.  He,  no 
doubt,  always  carried  his  hat  in  his  hand — a  three-cornered 


374  THE  PURSE.    . 

cocked  hat,  with  a  gold  cord — for  the  snowy  wings  of  his 
powdered  hair  showed  not  a  trace  of  its  pressure.  He  might 
have  been  taken  for  not  more  than  fifty  years  of  age,  and 
seemed  to  enjoy  robust  health.  While  wearing  the  frank  and 
loyal  expression  of  the  old  emigres,  his  countenance  also 
hinted  at  the  easy  habits  of  a  libertine,  at  the  light  and  reck- 
less passions  of  the  Musketeers  formerly  so  famous  in  the 
annals  of  gallantry.  His  gestures,  his  attitude,  and  his  manner 
proclaimed  that  he  had  no  intention  of  correcting  himself  of 
his  royalism,  of  his  religion,  or  of  his  love  affairs. 

A  really  fantastic  figure  came  in  behind  this  specimen  of 
"Louis  XIV.'s  light  infantry" — a  nickname  given  by  the 
Bonapartists.  to  these  venerable  survivors  of  the  Monarchy. 
To  do  it  justice  it  ought  to  be  made  the  principal  object  in 
the  picture,  and  it  is  but  an  accessory.  Imagine,  a  lean,  dry 
man,  dressed  like  the  former,  but  seeming  to  be  only  his 
reflection,  or  his  shadow,  if  you  will.  The  coat,  new  on  the 
first,  on  the  second  was  old  ;  the  powder  in  his  hair  looked 
less  white,  the  gold  of  the  fleurs-de-lis  less  bright,  the  shoulder- 
straps  more  hopeless  and  dog's-eared;  his  intellect  seemed 
more  feeble,  his  life  nearer  the  fatal  term  than  in  the  former. 
In  short,  he  realized  Rivarol's  witticism  on  Champcenetz, 
"  He  is  the  moonlight  of  me."  He  was  simply  his  double,  a 
paler  and  poorer  double,  for  there  was  between  them  all  the 
difference  that  lies  between  the  first  and  last  impressions  of  a 
lithograph. 

This  speechless  old  man  was  a  mystery  to  the  painter,  and 
always  remained  a  mystery.  The  chevalier,  for  he  was  a 
chevalier,  did  not  speak,  nobody  spoke  to  him.  Was  he  a 
friend,  a  poor  relation,  a  man  who  followed  at  the  old  gallant's 
heels  as  a  lady  companion  does  at  an  old  lady's?  Did  he  fill 
a  place  midway  between  a  dog,  a  parrot,  and  a  friend  ?  Had 
he  saved  his  patron's  fortune,  or  only  his  life?  Was  he  the 
Trim  to  another  Captain  Toby?  Elsewhere,  as  at  the  Baronne 
de  Rouville's,  he  always  piqued  curiosity  without  satisfying  it. 


THE  PURSE.  375 

Who,  after  the  Restoration,  could  remember  the  attachment 
which,  before  the  Revolution,  had  bound  this  man  to  his 
friend's  wife,  dead  now  these  twenty  years? 

The  leader,  who  appeared  the  least  dilapidated  of  these 
wrecks,  came  gallantly  up  to  Madame  de  Rouville,  kissed 
her  hand,  and  sat  down  by  her.  The  other  bowed  and 
placed  himself  not  far  from  his  model,  at  a  distance  rep- 
resented by  two  chairs.  Adelaide  came  behind  the  old 
gentleman's  armchair  and  leaned  her  elbows  on  the  back, 
unconsciously  imitating  the  attitude  given  to  Dido's  sister  by 
Guerin  in  his  famous  picture. 

Though  the  gentleman's  familiarity  was  that  of  a  father, 
his  freedom  seemed  at  the  moment  to  annoy  the  young  girl. 

"  What,  are  you  sulky  with  me?"   he  said. 

Then  he  shot  at  Schinner  one  of  those  side-looks  full  of 
shrewdness  and  cunning,  diplomatic  looks,  whose  expression 
betrays  the  discreet  uneasiness,  the  polite  curiosity  of  well- 
bred  people,  and  seems  to  ask,  when  they  see  a  stranger,  "  Is 
he  one  of  us?  " 

"This  is  our  neighbor,"  said  the  old  lady,  pointing  to 
Hippolyte.  "Monsieur  is  a  celebrated  painter,  whose  name 
must  be  known  to  you  in  spite  of  your  indifference  to  the 
arts." 

The  old  man  saw  his  friend's  mischievous  intent  in  sup- 
pressing the  name,  and  bowed  to  the  young  man. 

"Certainly,"  said  he.  "I  heard  a  great  deal  about  his 
pictures  at  the  last  Salon.  Talent  has  immense  privileges," 
he  added,  observing  the  artist's  red  ribbon.  "That  distinc- 
tion, which  we  must  earn  at  the  cost  of  our  blood  and  long 
service,  you  win  in  your  youth  ;  but  all  glory  is  of  the  same 
kindred,"  he  said,  laying  his  hand  on  his  cross  of  Saint- 
Louis. 

Hippolyte  murmured  a  few  words  of  acknowledgment, 
and  was  silent  again,  satisfied  to  admire  with  growing 
enthusiasm  the  beautiful  girl's    head    that  charmed  him  so 


376  THE  PURSE. 

much.  He  was  soon  lost  in  contemplation,  completely 
forgetting  the  extreme  misery  of  the  dwelling.  To  him 
Adelaide's  face  stood  out  against  a  luminous  atmosphere. 
He  replied  briefly  to  the  questions  addressed  to  him, 
which,  by  very  good  luck,  he  heard,  thanks  to  a  singular 
faculty  of  the  soul  which  sometimes  seems  to  have  a 
double  consciousness.  Who  has  not  known  what  it  is  to  sit 
lost  in  sad  or  delicious  meditation,  listening  to  its  voice 
within,  while  attending  to  a  conversation  or  to  reading?  An 
admirable  duality  which  often  helps  us  to  tolerate  a  bore! 
Hope,  prolific  and  smiling,  poured  out  before  him  a  thousand 
visions  of  happiness ;  and  he  refused  to  consider  what  was 
going  on  around  him.  As  confiding  as  a  child,  it  seemed  to 
him  base  to  analyze  a  pleasure.  After  a  short  lapse  of  time 
he  perceived  that  the  old  lady  and  her  daughter  were  playing 
cards  with  the  old  gentleman.  As  to  the  satellite,  faithful  to 
his  function  as  a  shadow,  he  stood  behind  his  friend's  chair 
watching  his  game,  and  answering  the  player's  mute  inquiries 
by  little  approving  nods,  repeating  the  questioning  gestures 
of  the  other  countenance. 

"  Du  Halga,  I  always  lose,"  said  the  gentleman. 

"You  discard  badly,"  replied  the  Baronne  de  Rouville. 

"  For  three  months  now  I  have  never  won  a  single 
game,"  said  he. 

"  Have  you  the  aces?"  asked  the  old  lady. 

"Yes,  one  more  to  mark,"  said  he. 

"  Shall  I  come  and  advise  you?  "  inquired  Adelaide  of  the 
irascible  player. 

"No,  no.  Stay  where  I  can  see  you.  By  Gad,  it  would 
be  losing  too  much  not  to  have  you  to  look  at !  " 

At  last  the  game  was  over.  The  gentleman  pulled  out  his 
purse,  and  throwing  two  louis  d'or  on  the  table,  not  without 
temper — 

"Forty  francs,"  he  exclaimed,  "the  exact  sum.  Deuce 
take  it !     It  is  eleven  o'clock." 


THE  PURSE.  377 

"It  is  eleven  o'clock,"  repeated  the  silent  figure,  looking 
at  the  painter. 

The  young  man,  hearing  these  words  rather  more  distinctly 
than  all  the  others,  thought  it  time  to  retire.  Coming  back 
to  the  world  of  ordinary  ideas,  he  found  a  few  commonplace 
remarks  to  make,  took  leave  of  the  Baroness,  her  daughter, 
and  the  two  strangers,  and  went  away,  wholly  possessed  by 
the  first  raptures  of  true  love,  without  attempting  to  analyze 
the  little  incidents  of  the  evening. 

On  the  morrow  the  young  painter  felt  the  most  ardent 
desire  to  see  Adelaide  once  more.  If  he  had  followed  the 
call  of  his  passion,  he  would  have  gone  to  his  neighbors5 
door  at  six  in  the  morning,  when  he  went  to  his  studio. 
.  However,  he  still  was  reasonable  enough  to  wait  till  the  after- 
noon. But  as  soon  as  he  thought  he  could  present  himself  to 
Madame  de  Rouville,  he  went  downstairs,  rang,  blushing  like 
a  girl,  shyly  asked  Mademoiselle  Leseigneur,  who  came  to  let 
him  in,  to  let  him  have  the  portrait  of  the  Baron. 

"But  come  in,"  said  Adelaide,  who  had  no  doubt  heard 
him  come  down  from  the  studio. 

The  painter  followed,  bashful  and  out  of  countenance,  not 
knowing  what  to  say,  happiness  had  so  dulled  his  wit.  To 
see  Adelaide,  to  hear  the  rustle  of  her  skirt,  after  longing  for 
a  whole  morning  to  be  near  her,  after  starting  up  a  hundred 
times — "  I  will  go  down  now" — and  not  to  have  gone;  this 
was  to  him  life  so  rich  that  such  sensations,  too  greatly  pro- 
longed, would  have  worn  out  his  spirit.  The  heart  has  the 
?  singular  power  of  giving  extraordinary  value  to  mere  noth- 
ings. What  joy  it  is  to  a  traveler  to  treasure  a  blade  of 
grass,  an  unfamiliar  leaf,  if  he  has  risked  his  life  to  pluck  it ! 
It  is  the  same  with  the  trifles  of  love. 

The  old  lady  was  not  in  the  drawing-room.  When  the 
young  girl  found  herself  there,  alone  with  the  painter,  she 
brought  a  chair  to  stand  on,  to  take  down  the  picture;  but 
perceiving  that  she  could  not  unhook  it  without  setting  her 


378  THE  PURSE. 

foot  on  the  chest  of  drawers,  she  turned  to  Hippolyte,  and 
said  with  a  blush — 

"  I  am  not  tall  enough.     Will  you  get  it  down?  " 

A  feeling  of  modesty,  betrayed  in  the  expression  of  her  face 
and  the  tones  of  her  voice,  was  the  real  motive  of  her  re- 
quest ;  and  the  young  man,  understanding  this,  gave  her  one 
of  those  glances  of  intelligence  which  are  the  sweetest  lan- 
guage of  love.  Seeing  that  the  painter  had  read  .her  soul, 
Adelaide  cast  down  her  eyes  with  the  instinct  of  reserve 
which  is  the  secret  of  a  maiden's  heart.  Hippolyte,  finding 
nothing  to  say,  and  feeling  almost  timid,  took  down  the  pic- 
ture, examined  it  gravely,  carrying  it  to  the  light  at  the  win- 
dow, and  then  went  away,  without  saying  a  word  to  Mademoi- 
selle Leseigneur  but,  "  I  will  return  it  soon." 

During  this  brief  moment  they  both  went  through  one  of 
those  storms  of  agitation  of  which  the  effects  in  the  soul  may 
be  compared  to  those  of  a  stone  flung  into  a  deep  lake.  The 
most  delightful  waves  of  thought  rise  and  follow  each  other, 
indescribable,  repeated,  and  aimless,  tossing  the  heart  like 
the  circular  ripples,  which  for  a  long  time  fret  the  waters, 
starting  from  the  point  where  the  stone  fell. 

Hippolyte  returned  to  the  studio  bearing  the  portrait.  His 
easel  was  ready  with  a  fresh  canvas,  and  his  palette  set,  his 
brushes  cleaned,  the  spot  and  the  light  carefully  chosen. 
And  till  the  dinner  hour  he  worked  at  the  painting  with  the 
ardor  artists  throw  into  their  whims.  He  went  again  that 
evening  to  the  Baronne  de  Rouville's,  and  remained  from 
nine  till  eleven.  Excepting  the  different  subjects  of  conver- 
sation, this  evening  was  exactly  like  the  last.  The  two  old 
men  arrived  at  the  same  hour,  the  same  game  of  piquet  was 
played,  the  same  speeches  made  by  the  players,  the  sum  lost 
by  Adelaide's  friend  was  not  less  considerable  than  on  the 
previous  evening;  only  Hippolyte,  a  little  bolder,  ventured 
to  chat  with  the  young  girl. 

A  week  passed  thus,  and  in  the  course  of  it  the  painter's 


THE  PURSE.  379 

feelings  and  Adelaide's  underwent  the  slow  and  delightful 
transformations  which  bring  two  souls  to  a  perfect  under- 
standing. Every  day  the  look  with  which  the  girl  welcomed 
her  friend  grew  more  intimate,  more  confiding,  gayer,  and 
more  open  ;  her  voice  and  manner  became  more  eager  and 
more  familiar.  They  laughed  and  talked  together,  telling 
each  other  their  thoughts,  speaking  of  themselves  with  the 
simplicity  of  two  children  who  have  made  friends  in  a  day,  as 
much  as  if  they  had  met  constantly  for  three  years.  Schinner 
wished  to  be  taught  piquet.  Being  ignorant  and  a  novice,  he, 
of  course,  made  blunder  after  blunder,  and,  like  the  old  man, 
he  lost  almost  every  game.  Without  having  spoken  a  word 
of  love  the  lovers  knew  that  they  were  all  in  all  to  one  an- 
other. Hippolyte  enjoyed  exerting  his  power  over  his  gentle 
little  friend,  and  many  concessions  were  made  to  him  by 
Adelaide,  who,  timid  and  devoted  to  him,  was  quite  deceived 
by  the  assumed  fits  of  temper,  such  as  the  least  skilled  lover 
and  the  most  guileless  girl  can  affect ;  and  which  they  con- 
stantly play  off,  as  spoiled  children  abuse  the  power  they  owe 
to  their  mother's  affection.  Thus  all  familiarity  between  the 
girl  and  the  old  Count  was  soon  put  a  stop  to.  She  under- 
stood the  painter's  melancholy,  and  the  thoughts  hidden  in 
the  furrows  on  his  brow,  from  the  abrupt  tone  of  the  few 
words  he  spoke  when  the  old  man  unceremoniously  kissed 
Adelaide's  hands  or  throat. 

Mademoiselle  Leseigneur,  on  her  part,  soon  expected  her 
lover  to  give  her  a  short  account  of  all  his  actions  ;  she  was 
so  unhappy,  so  restless  when  Hippolyte  did  not  come ;  she 
scolded  him  so  effectually  for  his  absence  that  the  painter 
had  to  give  up  seeing  his  other  friends  and  now  went  no- 
where. Adelaide  allowed  the  natural  jealousy  of  women  to 
be  perceived  when  she  heard  that  sometimes  at  eleven  o'clock, 
on  quitting  the  house,  the  painter  still  had  visits  to  pay,  and 
was  to  be  seen  in  the  most  brilliant  drawing-rooms  of  Paris. 
This  mode  of  life,  she  assured  him,  was  bad  for  his  health ; 


380  THE  PURSE. 

then,  with  the  intense  conviction  to  which  the  accent,  the 
emphasis,  and  the  look  of  one  we  love  lend  so  much  weight, 
she  asserted  that  a  man  who  was  obliged  to  expend  his  time 
and  the  charms  of  his  wit  on  several  women  at  once  could 
not  be  the  object  of  any  very  warm  affection.  Thus  the 
painter  was  led,  as  much  by  the  tyranny  of  his  passion  as 
by  the  exactions  of  a  girl  in  love,  to  live  exclusively  in  the 
little  apartment  where  everything  attracted  him. 

And  never  was  there  a  purer  or  more  ardent  love.  On 
both  sides  the  same  trustfulness,  the  same  delicacy,  gave  their 
passion  increase  without  the  aid  of  those  sacrifices  by  which 
many  persons  try  to  prove  their  affection.  Between  these  two 
there  was  such  a  constant  interchange  of  sweet  emotion  that 
they  knew  not  which  gave  or  received  the  most. 

A  spontaneous  affinity  made  the  union  of  their  souls  a  close 
one.  The  progress  of  this  true  feeling  was  so  rapid  that  two 
months  after  the  accident  to  which  the  painter  owed  the  hap- 
piness of  knowing  Adelaide,  their  lives  were  one  life.  From 
early  morning  the  young  girl,  hearing  footsteps  overhead, 
could  say  to  herself,  "  He  is  there."  When  Hippolyte  went 
home  to  his  mother  at  the  dinner  hour  he  never  failed  to  look 
in  on  his  neighbors,  and  in  the  evening  he  flew  there  at  the 
accustomed  hour  with  a  lover's  punctuality.  Thus  the  most 
tyrannical  woman  or  the  most  ambitious  in  the  matter  of  love 
could  not  have  found  the  smallest  fault  with  the  young  painter. 
And  Adelaide  tasted  of  unmixed  and  unbounded  happiness  as 
she  saw  the  fullest  realization  of  the  ideal  of  which,  at  her 
age,  it  is  so  natural  to  dream. 

The  old  gentleman  now  came  more  rarely ;  Hippolyte,  who 
had  been  jealous,  had  taken  his  place  at  the  green  table,  and 
shared  his  constant  ill-luck  at  cards.  And  sometimes,  in  the 
midst  of  his  happiness,  as  he  considered  Madame  de  Rouville's 
disastrous  position — for  he  had  had  more  than  one  proof  of 
her  extreme  poverty — an  importunate  thought  would  haunt 
him.     Several  times  he  had  said  to  himself  as  he  went  home, 


THE   PURSE.  381 

"  Strange  !  twenty  francs  every  evening?  "  and  he  dared  not 
confess  to  himsef  his  odious  suspicions. 

He  spent  two  months  over  the  portrait,  and  when  it  was 
finished,  varnished,  and  framed,  he  looked  upon  it  as  one  of 
his  best  works.  Madame  la  Baronne  de  Rouville  had  never 
spoken  of  it  again.  Was  this  from  indifference  or  pride  ?  The 
painter  would  not  allow  himself  to  account  for  this  silence. 
He  joyfully  plotted  with  Adelaide  to  hang  the  picture  in  its 
place  when  Madame  de  Rouville  should  be  out.  So  one  day, 
during  the  walk  her  mother  usually  took  in  the  Tuileries, 
Adelaide  for  the  first  time  went  up  to  Hippolyte's  studio,  on 
the  pretext  of  seeing  the  portrait  in  the  good  light  in  which  it 
had  been  painted.  She  stood  speechless  and  motionless,  but 
in  ecstatic  contemplation,  in  which  all  a  woman's  feelings 
were  merged.  For  are  they  not  all  comprehended  in  bound- 
less admiration  for  the  man  she  loves  ?  When  the  painter, 
uneasy  at  her  silence,  leaned  forward  to  look  at  her,  she  held 
out  her  hand,  unable  to  speak  a  word,  but  two  tears  fell  from 
her  eyes.  Hippolyte  took  her  hand  and  covered  it  with 
kisses;  for  a  minute  they  looked  at  each  other  in  silence,  both 
longing  to  confess  their  love,  and  not  daring.  The.  painter 
kept  her  hand  in  his,  and  the  same  glow,  the  same  throb,  told 
them  that  their  hearts  were  both  beating  wildly.  The  young 
girl,  too  greatly  agitated,  gently  drew  away  from  Hippolyte, 
and  said,  with  a  look  of  the  utmost  simplicity — 

"You  will  make  my  mother  very  happy." 

"  What  !  only  your  mother?  "  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  I  am  too  happy." 

The  painter  bent  his  head  and  remained  silent,  frightened 
at  the  vehemence  of  the  feelings  which  her  tones  stirred  in  his 
heart.  Then,  both  understanding  the  perils  of  the  situation, 
they  went  downstairs  and  hung  up  the  picture  in  its  place. 
Hippolyte  dined  for  the  first  time  with  the  Baroness,  who, 
greatly  overcome  and  drowned  in  tears,  must  needs  embrace 
him. 


382  THE  PURSE. 

In  the  evening  the  old  emigre,  the  Baron  de  Rouville's  old 
comrade,  paid  the  ladies  a  visit  to  announce  that  he  had  just 
been  promoted  to  the  rank  of  vice-admiral.  His  voyages  by- 
land  over  Germany  and  Russia  had  been  counted  as  naval 
campaigns.  On  seeing  the  portrait  he  cordially  shook  the 
painter's  hand,  and  exclaimed,  "  By  Gad  !  though  my  old 
hulk  does  not  deserve  to  be  perpetuated,  I  would  gladly  give 
five  hundred  pistoles  to  see  myself  as  like  as  that  is  to  my  dear 
old  Rouville." 

At  this  hint  the  Baroness  looked  at  her  young  friend  and 
smiled,  while  her  face  lighted  up  with  an  expression  of  sudden 
gratitude.  Hippolyte  suspected  that  the  old  admiral  wished 
to  offer  him  the  price  of  both  portraits  while  paying  for  his 
own.  His  pride  as  an  artist,  no  less  than  his  jealousy  perhaps, 
took  offense  at  the  thought,  and  he  replied — 

"  Monsieur,  if  I  were  a  portrait  painter,  I  should  not  have 
done  this  one." 

The  admiral  bit  his  lip  and  sat  down  to  cards. 

The  painter  remained  near  Adelaide,  who  proposed  a  dozen 
hands  of  piquet,  to  which  he  agreed.  As  he  played  he  ob- 
served jn  Madame  de  Rouville  an  excitement  over  the  game 
which  surprised  him.  Never  before  had  the  old  Baroness 
manifested  so  ardent  a  desire  to  win  or  so  keen  a  joy  in  fin- 
gering the  old  gentleman's  gold-pieces.  During  the  evening 
evil  suspicions  troubled  Hippolyte's  happiness  and  filled  him 
with  distrust.  Could  it  be  that  Madame  de  Rouville  lived  by 
gambling  ?  Was  she  playing  at  this  moment  to  pay  off  some 
debt  or  under  the  pressure  of  necessity  ?  Perhaps  she  had 
not  paid  her  rent.  That  old  man  seemed  shrewd  enough  not 
to  allow  his  money  to  be  taken  with  impunity.  What  interest 
attracted  him  to  this  poverty-stricken  house,  he  who  was  rich? 
Why,  when  he  had  formerly  been  so  familiar  with  Adelaide, 
had  he  given  up  the  rights  he  had  acquired  and  which  were 
perhaps  his  due? 

These  involuntary  reflections  prompted  him  to  watch  the 


THE  PURSE.  383 

old  man  and  the  Baroness,  whose  meaning  looks  and  certain 
sidelong  glances  cast  at  Adelaide  displeased  him.  "Am  I 
being  duped?"  was  Hippolyte's  last  idea — horrible,  scathing, 
for  he  believed  it  just  enough  to  be  tortured  by  it.  He  de- 
termined to  stay  after  the  departure  of  the  two  old  men,  to 
confirm  or  to  dissipate  his  suspicions.  He  drew  out  his  purse 
to  pay  Adelaide;  but,  carried  away  by  his  poignant  thoughts, 
he  laid  it  on  the  table,  falling  into  a  reverie  of  brief  duration  ; 
then,  ashamed  of  his  silence,  he  arose,  answered  some  com- 
monplace question  from  Madame  de  Rouville,  and  went  close 
up  to  her  to  examine  the  withered  features  while  he  was  talk- 
ing to  her. 

He  went  away,  racked  by  a  thousand  doubts.  He  had 
gone  down  but  a  few  steps  when  he  turned  back  to  fetch  the 
forgotten  purse. 

"  I  left  my  purse  here  !  "  he  said  to  the  young  girl. 

"No,"  she  said,  reddening. 

"  I  thought  it  was  there,"  and  he  pointed  to  the  card-table. 
Not  finding  it,  in  his  shame  for  Adelaide  and  the  Baroness, 
he  looked  at  them  with  a  blank  amazement  that  made  them 
laugh,  turned  pale,  felt  his  waistcoat,  and  said,  "I  must  have 
made  a  mistake.     I  have  it  somewhere,  no  doubt." 

In  one  end  of  the  purse  there  were  fifteen  louis  d'or,  and 
in  the  other  some  small  change.  The  theft  was  so  flagrant, 
and  denied  with  such  effrontery,  that  Hippolyte  no  longer 
felt  a  doubt  as  to  his  neighbors'  morals.  He  stood  still  on 
the  stairs  and  got  down  with  some  difficulty ;  his  knees  shook, 
he  felt  dizzy,  he  was  in  a  cold  sweat,  he  shivered,  and  found 
himself  unable  to  walk,  struggling,  as  he  was,  with  the  ago- 
nizing shock  caused  by  the  destruction  of  all  his  hopes.  And 
at  this  moment  he  found  lurking  in  his  memory  a  number  of 
observations,  trifling  in  themselves,  but  which  corroborated 
his  frightful  suspicions,  and  which,  by  proving  the  certainty 
of  this  last  incident,  opened  his  eyes'  as  to  the  character  and 
life  of  these  two  women. 


384  THE  PURSE. 

Had  they  really  waited  until  the  portrait  was  given  them 
before  robbing  him  of  his  purse  ?  In  such  a  combination  the 
theft  was  even  more  odious.  The  painter  recollected  that  for 
the  last  two  or  three  evenings  Adelaide,  while  seeming  to 
examine  with  a  girl's  curiosity  the  particular  stitch  of  the 
worn  silk  netting,  was  probably  counting  the  coins  in  the 
purse,  while  making  some  light  jests,  quite  innocent  in  ap- 
pearance, but  no  doubt  with  the  object  of  watching  for  a 
moment  when  the  sum  was  worth  stealing. 

"  The  old  admiral  has  perhaps  good  reasons  for  not  marry- 
ing Adelaide,  and  so  the  Baroness  has  tried " 

But  at  this  hypothesis  he  checked  himself,  not  finishing  his 
thought,  which  was  contradicted  by  a  very  just  reflection, 
"  If  the  Baroness  hopes  to  get  me  to  marry  her  daughter," 
thought  he,  "they  would  not  have  robbed  me." 

Then,  clinging  to  his  illusion,  to  the  love  that  already  had 
taken  such  deep  root,  he  tried  to  find  a  justification  in  some 
accident.  "The  purse  must  have  fallen  on  the  floor,"  said 
he  to  himself,  "or  I  left  it  lying  on  my  chair.  Or  perhaps  I 
have  it  about  me — lam  so  absent-minded!"  He  searched 
himself  with  hurried  movements,  but  did  not  find  the  ill- 
starred  purse.  His  memory  cruelly  retraced  the  fatal  truth, 
minute  by  minute.  He  distinctly  saw  the  purse  lying  on  the 
green  cloth  ;  but  then,  doubtful  no  longer,  he  excused  Ade- 
laide, telling  himself  that  persons  in  misfortune  should  not  be 
so  hastily  condemned.  There  was,  of  course,  some  secret 
behind  this  apparently  degrading  action.  He  would  not 
admit  that  that  proud  and  noble  face  was  a  lie. 

At  the  same  time  the  wretched  rooms  rose  before  him, 
denuded  of  the  poetry  of  love  which  beautifies  everything ; 
he  saw  them  dirty  and  faded,  regarding  them  as  emblematic 
of  an  inner  life  devoid  of  honor,  idle  and  vicious.  Are  not 
our  feelings  written,  as  it  were,  on  things  about  us? 

Next  morning  he  arose,  not  having  slept.  The  heartache, 
that  terrible  malady  of  the  soul,  had  made  rapid   inroads. 


THE  PURSE.  385 

To  lose  the  bliss  we  dreamed  of,  to  renounce  our  whole  future, 
is  a  keener  pang  than  that  caused  by  the  loss  of  known 
happiness,  however  complete  it  may  have  been ;  for  is  not 
Hope  better  than  Memory  ?  The  thoughts  into  which  our 
spirit  is  suddenly  plunged  are  like  a  shoreless  sea  in  which 
we  may  swim  for  a  moment,  but  where  our  love  is  doomed  to 
drown  and  die.  And  it  is  a  frightful  death.  Are  not  our 
feelings  the  most  glorious  part  of  our  life  ?  It  is  this  partial 
death  which,  in  certain  delicate  or  powerful  natures,  leads  to  the 
terrible  ruin  produced  by  disenchantment,  by  hopes  and  pas- 
sions betrayed.  Thus  it  was  with  the  young  painter.  He  went 
out  at  a  very  early  hour  to  walk  under  the  fresh  shade  of  the 
Tuileries,  absorbed  in  his  thoughts,  forgetting  everything  in 
the  world. 

There  by  chance  he  met  one  of  his  most  intimate  friends, 
a  schoolfellow  and  studio-mate,  with  whom  he  had  lived  on 
better  terms  than  with  a  brother. 

"Why,  Hippolyte,  what  ails  you?"  asked  Francois 
Souchet,  the  young  sculptor  who  had  just  won  the  first  prize 
and  was  soon  to  set  out  for  Italy. 

"I  am  most  unhappy,"  replied  Hippolyte  gravely. 

"  Nothing  but  a  love  affair  can  cause  you  grief.  Money, 
glory,  respect — you  lack  nothing." 

Insensibly  the  painter  was  led  into  confidences,  and  con- 
fessed his  love.  The  moment  he  mentioned  the  Rue  de 
Suresne,  and  a  young  girl  living  on  the  fourth  floor,  "  Stop, 
stop,"  cried  Souchet  lightly.  "A  little  girl  I  see  every 
morning  at  the  church  of  the  Assumption,  and  with  whom  I 
have  a  flirtation.  But,  my  dear  fellow,  we  all  know  her. 
The  mother  is  a  Baroness.  Do  you  really  believe  in  a 
Baroness  living  up  four  flights  of  stairs?  Brrr  !  Why,  you 
are  a  relic  of  the  golden  age  !  We  see  the  old  mother  here, 
in  this  avenue,  every  day ;  why,  her  face,  her  appearance,  tell 
everything.  What,  have  you  not  known  her  for  what  she  is 
by  the  way  she  holds  her  bag?  " 
25 


386  THE  PURSE. 

The  two  friends  walked  up  and  down  for  some  time,  and 
several  young  men  who  knew  Souchet  or  Schinner  joined 
them.  The  painter's  adventure,  which  the  sculptor  regarded 
as  unimportant,  was  repeated  by  him. 

"  So  he,  too,  has  seen  that  young  lady  !  "  said  Souchet. 

And  then  there  were  comments,  laughter,  innocent  mockery, 
full  of  the  liveliness  familiar  to  artists,  but  which  pained 
Hippolyte  frightfully.  A  certain  native  reticence  made  him 
uncomfortable  as  he  saw  his  heart's  secret  so  carelessly  handled, 
his  passion  rent,  torn  to  tatters,  a  young  and  unknown  girl, 
whose  life  seemed  to  be  so  modest,  the  victim  of  conden> 
nation,  right  or  wrong,  but  pronounced  with  such  reckless 
indifference.  He  pretended  to  be  moved  by  a  spirit  of  con- 
tradiction, asking  each  for  proofs  of  his  assertions,  and  their 
jests  began  again. 

"But,  my  dear  boy,  have  you  seen  the  Baroness*  shawl?" 
asked  Souchet. 

"  Have  you  ever  followed  the  girl  when  she  patters  off  to 
church  in  the  morning?"  said  Joseph  Bridau,  a  young 
dauber  in  Gros'  studio. 

"Oh,  the  mother  has  among  other  virtues  a  certain  gray 
gown,  which  I  regard  as  typical,"  said  Bixiou,  the  caricaturist. 

"Listen,  Hippolyte,"  the  sculptor  went  on.  "Come  here 
at  about  four  o'clock  and  just  study  the  walk  of  both  mother 
and  daughter.  If  after  that  you  still  have  doubts  !  well,  no 
one  can  ever  make  anything  of  you;  you  would  be  capable 
of  marrying  your  porter's  daughter." 

Torn  by  the  most  conflicting  feelings,  the  painter  parted 
from  his  friends.  It  seemed  to  him  that  Adelaide  and  her 
mother  must  be  superior  to  these  accusations,  and  at  the  bottom 
of  his  heart  he  was  filled  with  remorse  for  having  suspected  the 
purity  of  this  beautiful  and  simple  girl.  He  went  to  his  studio, 
passing  the  door  of  the  rooms  where  Adelaide  was,  and  con- 
scious of  a  pain  at  his  heart  which  no  man  can  misapprehend. 
He  loved  Mademoiselle  de  Rouville  so  passionately  that,  in  spite 


THE  PURSE.  387 

of  the  theft  of  the  purse,  he  still  worshiped  her.  His  love  was 
that  of  the  Chevalier  des  Grieux  admiring  his  mistress,  and 
holding  her  as  pure,  even  on  the  cart  which  carries  such  lost 
creatures  to  prison.  "  Why  should  my  love  not  keep  her  the 
purest  of  women  ?  Why  abandon  her  to  evil  and  to  vice  with- 
out holding  out  a  rescuing  hand  to  her?  " 

The  idea  of  this  mission  pleased  him.  Love  makes  a  gain 
of  everything.  Nothing  tempts  a  young  man  more  than  to 
play  the  part  of  a  good  genius  to  a  woman.  There  is  some- 
thing inexplicably  romantic  in  such  an  enterprise  which  ap- 
peals to  a  highly  strung  soul.  Is  it  not  the  utmost  stretch  of 
devotion  under  the  loftiest  and  most  engaging  aspect?  Is 
there  not  something  grand  in  the  thought  that  we  love 
enough  still  to  love  on  when  the  love  of  others  dwindles  and 
dies? 

Hippolyte  sat  down  in  his  studio,  gazed  at  his  picture  with- 
out doing  anything  to  it,  seeing  the  figures  through  tears  that 
swelled  in  his  eyes,  holding  his  brush  in  his  hand,  going  up  to 
the  canvas  as  if  to  soften  down  an  effect,  but  not  touching  it. 
Night  fell,  and  he  was  still  in  this  attitude.  Roused  from  his 
moodiness  by  the  darkness,  he  went  downstairs,  met  the  old 
admiral  on  the  way,  looked  darkly  at  him  as  he  bowed,  and 
fled. 

He  had  intended  going  in  to  see  the  ladies,  but  the  sight 
of  Adelaide's  protector  froze  his  heart  and  dispelled  his  pur- 
pose. For  the  hundredth  time  he  wondered  what  interest 
could  bring  this  old  prodigal,  with  his  eighty  thousand  francs 
a  year,  to  this  fourth  story,  where  he  lost  about  forty  francs 
every  evening ;   and  he  thought  he  could  guess  what  it  was. 

The  next  and  following  days  Hippolyte  threw  himself  into 
his  work,  to  try  to  conquer   his  passion  by  the  swift  rush  of 
ideas   and    the    ardor  of  composition.      He  half  succeeded. 
Study  consoled  him,  though  it  could  not  smother  the  memo- 
ries of  so  many  tender  hours  spent  with  Adelaide. 

One  evening,  as  he  left  his  studio,  he  saw  the  door  of  the 


388  THE  PURSE. 

ladies'  rooms  half  open.  Somebody  was  standing  in  the  recess 
of  the  window,  and  the  position  of  the  door  and  the  staircase 
made  it  impossible  that  the  painter  should  pass  without  seeing 
Adelaide.  He  bowed  coldly,  with  a  glance  of  supreme  indif- 
ference ;  but,  judging  of  the  girl's  suffering  by  his  own,  he  felt 
an  inward  shudder  as  he  reflected  on  the  bitterness  which  that 
look  and  that  coldness  must  produce  in  a  loving  heart.  To 
crown  the  most  delightful  feast  which  ever  brought  joy  to  two 
pure  souls,  by  eight  days  of  disdain,  of  the  deepest  and  most 
utter  contempt !  A  frightful  conclusion  !  And  perhaps  the 
purse  had  been  found,  perhaps  Adelaide  had  looked  for  her 
friend  every  evening. 

This  simple  and  natural  idea  filled  the  lover  with  fresh  re- 
morse; he  asked  himself  whether  the  proofs  of  attachment 
given  him  by  the  young  girl,  the  delightful  talks,  full  of  the 
love  that  had  so  charmed  him,  did  not  deserve  at  least  an 
inquiry;  were  not  worthy  of  some  justification.  Ashamed  of 
having  resisted  the  promptings  of  his  heart  for  a  whole  week, 
and  feeling  himself  almost  a  criminal  in  this  mental  struggle, 
he  called  the  same  evening  on  Madame  de  Rouville. 

All  his  suspicions,  all  his  evil  thoughts  vanished  at  the  sight 
of  the  young  girl,  who  had  grown  pale  and  thin. 

"Good  heavens  !  what  is  the  matter?"  he  asked  her,  after 
greeting  the  Baroness. 

Adelaide  made  no  reply,  but  she  gave  him  a  look  of  deep 
melancholy,  a  sad,  dejected  look,  which  pained  and  humili- 
ated him. 

"You  have,  no  doubt,  been  working  hard,"  said  the  old 
lady.  "You  are  altered.  We  are  the  cause  of  your  seclu- 
sion. That  portrait  had  delayed  some  pictures  essential  to 
your  reputation." 

Hippolyte  was  glad  to  find  so  good  an  excuse  for  his  rude- 
ness. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  have  been  very  busy,  but  I  have  been 
suffering " 


THE   PURSE.  380 

At  these  words  Adelaide  raised  her  head,  looked  at  her 
lover,  and  her  anxious  eyes  had  now  no  hint  of  reproach. 

"  You  must  have  thought  us  quite  indifferent  to  any  good 
or  ill  that  may  befall  you  ?  "  said  the  old  lady. 

"I  was  wrong,"  he  replied.  "Still,  there  are  forms  of 
pain  which  we  know  not  how  to  confide  to  any  one,  even  to  a 
friendship  of  older  date  than  that  with  which  you  honor  me." 

"  The  sincerity  and  strength  of  friendship  are  not  to  be 
measured  by  time.  I  have  seen  old  friends  who  had  not  a 
tear  to  bestow  on  misfortune,"  said  the  Baroness,  nodding 
sadly. 

"  But  you — what  ails  you  ?  "  the  young  man  asked  Adelaide. 

"Oh,  nothing,"  replied  the  Baroness;  "Adelaide  has  sat 
up  late  for  some  nights  to  finish  some  little  piece  of  woman's 
work,  and  would  not  listen  to  me  when  I  told  her  that  a  day 
more  or  less  did  not  matter " 

Hippolyte  was  not  listening.  As  he  looked  at  these  two 
noble,  calm  faces,  he  blushed  for  his  suspicions  and  ascribed 
the  loss  of  his  purse  to  some  unknown  accident. 

This  was  a  delicious  evening  to  him,  and  perhaps  to  her 
too.  There  are  some  secrets  which  young  souls  understand 
so  well.  Adelaide  could  read  Hippolyte's  thoughts.  Though 
he  could  not  confess  his  misdeeds,  the  painter  knew  them, 
and  he  had  come  back  to  his  mistress  more  in  love  and  more 
affectionate,  trying  thus  to  purchase  her  tacit  forgiveness. 
Adelaide  was  enjoying  such  perfect,  such  sweet  happiness, 
that  she  did  not  think  she  had  paid  too  dear  for  it  with  all  the 
grief  that  had  so  cruelly  crushed  her  soul.  And  yet,  this  true 
concord  of  hearts,  this  understanding  so  full  of  magic  charm, 
was  disturbed  by  a  little  speech  of  Madame  de  Rouville's. 

"Let  us  have  our  little  game,"  she  said,  "for  my  old 
friend  Kergarouet  will  not  let  me  off." 

These  words  revived  all  the  young  painter's  fears;  he  col- 
ored as  he  looked  at  Adelaide's  mother,  but  he  saw  nothing 
in  her  countenance  but  the  expression  of  the  frankest  good- 


390  THE  PURSE. 

nature ;  no  double  meaning  marred  its  charm  ;  its  keenness 
was  not  perfidious,  its  humor  seemed  kindly,  and  no  trace  of 
remorse  disturbed  its  equanimity. 

He  sat  down  to  the  card-table.  Adelaide  took  side  with 
the  painter,  saying  that  he  did  not  know  piquet,  and  needed 
a- partner. 

All  through  the  game  Madame  de  Rouville  and  her  daugh- 
ter exchanged  looks  of  intelligence,  which  alarmed  Hippolyte 
all  the  more  because  he  was  winning ;  but  at  last  a  final  hand 
left  the  lovers  in  the  old  lady's  debt. 

To  feel  for  some  money  in  his  pocket  the  painter  took  his 
hands  off  the  table,  and  he  then  saw  before  him  a  purse 
which  Adelaide  had  slipped  in  front  of  him  without  his 
noticing  it ;  the  poor  child  had  the  old  one  in  her  hand,  and, 
to  keep  her  countenance,  was  looking  into  it  for  the  money 
to  pay  her  mother.  The  blood  rushed  to  Hippolyte's  heart 
with  such  force  that  he  was  near  fainting. 

The  new  purse,  substituted  for  his  own,  and  which  con- 
tained his  fifteen  gold  louis,  was  worked  with  gilt  beads. 
The  rings  and  tassels  bore  witness  to  Adelaide's  good  taste, 
and  she  had  no  doubt  spent  all  her  little  hoard  in  ornament- 
ing this  pretty  piece  of  work.  It  was  impossible  to  say  with 
greater  delicacy  that  the  painter's  gift  could  only  be  repaid 
by  some  proof  of  affection.  Hippolyte,  overcome  with  hap- 
piness, turned  to  look  at  Adelaide  and  her  mother,  and  saw 
that  they  were  tremulous  with  pleasure  and  delight  at  their 
little  trick.  He  felt  himself  mean,  sordid,  a  fool;  he  longed 
to  punish  himself,  to  rend  his  heart.  A  few  tears  rose  to  his 
eyes,  by  an  irresistible  impulse  he  sprang  up,  clasped  Adelaide 
in  his  arms,  pressed  her  to  his  heart,  and  stole  a  kiss ;  then 
with  the  simple  heartiness  of  an  artist :  "  I  ask  her  for  my 
wife  !  "  he  exclaimed,  looking  at  the  Baroness. 

Adelaide  looked  at  him  with  half-wrathful  eyes,  and  Mad- 
ame de  Rouville,  somewhat  astonished,  was  considering  her 
reply,  when  the  scene  was  interrupted  by  a  ring  at  the  bell. 


THE  PURSE.  391 

The  old  vice-admiral  came  in,  followed  by  his  shadow  and 
Madame  Schinner.  Having  guessed  the  cause  of  the  grief 
her  son  vainly  endeavored  to  conceal,  Hippolyte's  mother 
had  made  inquiries  among  her  friends  concerning  Adelaide. 
Very  justly  alarmed  by  the  calumnies  which  weighed  on  the 
young  girl,  unknown  to  the  Comte  de  Kergarouet,  whose 
name  she  learned  from  the  porter's  wife,  she  went  to  report 
them  to  the  vice-admiral;  and  he,  in  his  rage,  declared  "he 
would  crop  all  the  scoundrels'  ears  for  them." 

Then,  prompted  by  his  wrath,  he  went  on  to  explain  to 
Madame  Schinner  the  secret  of  his  losing  intentionally  at 
cards,  because  the  Baronne's  pride  left  him  none  but  these 
ingenious  means  of  assisting  her. 

When  Madame  Schinner  had  paid  her  respects  to  Madame 
de  Rouville,  the  Baroness  looked  at  the  Comte  de  Kergarouet, 
at  the  Chevalier  du  Halga — the  friend  of  the  departed  Com- 
tesse  de  Kergarouet — at  Hippolyte  and  Adelaide,  and  then 
said,  with  the  grace  that  comes  from  the  heart,  "So  we  are  a 
family  party  this  evening." 

Paris,  May,  1832. 


